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coPYRroHT DEPosrr. 



CHRISTMAS SERMONS 



'By 
FRANCIS J. McCONNELL 



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CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 




Copyright. 1909. 
By Jennings and Graham 



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CONTENTS 



I. The Foregleam, - - - 5 

II. God With Us, - - . 21 

III. The Groups Around the 

Cradle, - - - - 37 

IV. The Wise Men, - - - 51 
V. The Shepherds, - - - 63 

VI. The Boy Jesus, - - - 79 

VII. The Word Become Flesh, - 91 

VIII. The Poverty of Christ, - 103 

IX. The Immortal Gift, - - 121 

X. The Gifts That Never Come, 137 

XI. The Kingdom That Cometh 

Without Observation, - 155 

XII. The Kingdom of Pearl, - 175 

XIII. The Recovery of the Lost, - 191 

XIV. The Christmas Feast, - 225 
XV. No Room in the Inn, - - 243 



THE FOREGLEAM 



THE FOREGLEAM 

Genesis in, 15 

This passage has ordinarily been regarded 
as the first glimpse of Christ and His work 
to be caught from the Old Testament. It has 
long been called the first of the Messianic 
passages. Onr fathers saw in these words a 
definite prediction of the coming of Jesus and 
of His triumph over evil. Christ was the 
seed of the woman to whom the author looked 
for the world's redemption. 

In later days the critical students have 
swung far to the opposite direction. Accord- 
ing to such students the author is not think- 
ing of Christ at all. He is thinking simply 
of the conflict raised between man and evil 
at the very beginning of human existence. 
Some forbid us to think even this much — 

and insist that the writer had before him 

7 



8 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

merely to account for man's hatred of rep- 
tiles and that he traced human animosity 
against the snake to an early betrayal of 
man's interests by a subtle serpent. 

The Christian world is hardly likely to 
accept this detail of recent Biblical exegesis. 
We are not to be persuaded that the Genesis 
narrative has no deeper meaning than an at- 
tempt to account for an impulse to kill snakes. 
We soon get ourselves above the dry-as-dust 
of merely literal criticism. The Master said 
that the letter killeth, while the spirit giveth 
life. These words have application to others 
than the old-fashioned interpreters who took 
even figures of speech literally. The Mas- 
ter's words may well be borne in mind by 

new-fashioned interpreters as well. It is pos- 
sible to use scientific methods with such pain- 
ful exactness as to lose sight of inner sym- 
bolism and poetic suggestiveness. We can 
not read this story without feeling that the 
writer of Genesis is speaking of the conflict 
with evil in the heart of man. The subtlety 



THE FOEEGLEAM 9 

of the serpent is the subtlety of evil. There 
is no profounder statement in literature of 
the methods by which temptation comes than 
the story of Eve's temptation. The fruit is 
good for food— it is pleasant to look upon— 
it is to be desired to make one wise. More- 
over, the serpent knows how to use a half- 
truth. The insinuation is that God has not 
told the truth— for on the day that the eater 
might partake, death would not come. Use- 
fulness, beauty, wisdom— all are set forth as 
on the side of disobedience at the same time 
that the feeling is raised in the woman's 
heart that she has not been fairly dealt with. 
He who can read through this narrative and 
see in it simply a battle with a serpent must 
indeed have his eyes holden. 

But how do the words refer to Christ? 
Literally, there seems to be no mention of 
Christ. We have only the story of a conflict, 
and are not even told how the conflict is to 
end. Must we not, then, give up the passage 
as Messianic? Must we not say that there 



10 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

is no sense in which it can be used as a pre- 
diction of the birth of Christ? 

We are coming more and more to see that 
we can not rule out of the Old Testament 
the real prophecy of Christ by ruling out a 
particular conception of the manner of that 
prophecy. Let it be granted that the ancient 
writer was thinking merely of the conflict 
which he saw around him. Sometimes men 
speak more wisely than they realize. Some- 
times they use words into which an after age 
will pour fuller meanings than the writers 

knew. 

The prophecy of the coming of Christ is 
in the very fact of the conflict at all. In 
the light of our full Christian knowledge we 
see that any conflict with evil implies and 
makes inevitable the coming of the Redeemer. 
The hopefulness of the Christian system is 
shown in the way we look back to this ac- 
count of the Fall and see in it but one out- 
come—the victory of righteousness. We 
read the passage in the hght of this con- 



THE FOEEGLEAM H 

ception— there can be but one outcome. If 
the fight is on at all, victory is eventually 
assured. Suppose, for the sake of illustra- 
tion, we think of that literalistic interpreta- 
tion which made this story simply one of war 
with the reptile world. Let us imagine some 
wise serpent talking to his fellows about the 
advent of men. What would be the best ad- 
vice he could give? What but this— that the 
serpent should keep out of the way of the 
man? If a conflict once starts, there can 
be but one outcome. It can only end in the 
victory of men over the subtlety and the 
venom of the serpent. Many men may fall 
in the warfare, but there can be but one end. 
The conflict will be a long one, but civiliza- 
tion will look forward with calm hopefulness 
to the day when the last poisonous enemy of 
mankind shall be crushed beneath the death- 
dealing heel. So in the conflict with sin. 
With the warfare once begun, there can be 
no rest until Christ comes— the final revela- 
tion of the purpose of God. 



12 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

Or, to change tlie illustration, we may 
think of the victory of one world-empire over 
another. John Fiske has somewhere a strik- 
ing passage in which he compares the ad- 
vance of the English over the Allegheny 
Mountains against the French to an ominous 
strain which recurs again and again in a 
great opera. In the midst of the swelling 
outbursts there sound now and again the 
notes which tell of impending doom. The 
French Empire in America stretches from 
Quebec to New Orleans, reaching along the 
line of the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi 
Eiver to the Gulf of Mexico— a continental 
domain apparently secure from successful 
attack. The English frontiersmen, however, 
here and there climb the Allegheny Moun- 
tains and strike at the line of the French 
outposts. The English stand for a more 
vital control of the wilderness than do the 
French, for a type of civilization more able 
to hold and utilize the American territory. 
Because the English stand for this higher 



THE FOEEGLEAM 13 

type of control, the first insignificant contests 
in the wilds of the Allegheny forests are 
prophecies of the flags of Wolfe on the Plains 
of Abraham and of the coming of the giant 
hosts which are to fasten English civilization 
in the Mississippi Valley. Of course the il- 
lustration is inadequate, since we must not 
make a conflict of English and French a con- 
flict of good and evil, but in its large reach 
and significance this dramatic historical con- 
flict does suggest the mighty meaning and 
prophecy which is often hidden in insignifi- 
cant beginnings. Under whatever circum- 
stances a man anywhere begins the fight 
against evil, he can rest assured that if he 
will but persist his conflict can have but one 
outcome. The Lord Christ will come. Any 
battle against unrighteousness means that 
the Christ revelation will biB inevitable sooner 
or later. 

"We may say, then, first of all, that God 
is so interested in any stand on man^s part 
against evil that the very beginning of the 



U CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

fight is a prophecy of Christ as its end. 
There was a time when any aggressive move- 
ment of a certain great empire meant the com- 
ing of Napoleon. The aggressor might be 
in the first place some obscnre corporal, bnt 
in his aggression was the forward-reaching 
of the empire and the prophecy of the coming 
of the emperor. So in the increase of that 
Christly kingdom which knows no end. Any 
frontier conflict means the tonching of a sig- 
nal line which runs to the capital and calls 
out in the end the last reserve. 

We must go farther than this, however. 
We must pnt Christ, not merely at the end 
of the struggle, bnt also in the beginning. 
We are rapidly modifying onr emphasis on 
God as a Helper in the time of crisis. The 
psalmist tells ns that God is a very present 
Help in the time of trouble, and we rejoice 
in the thought of our ability to call upon 
God in seasons of imminent peril. There is, 
however, in this line of reflection too much 
chance to think of God merely as a Helper in 



THE FOEEGLEAM 15 

the time of emergency. We allow ourselves 
to believe that in many respects we can go 
on our way in the consciousness that God will 
help us out if we are caught in a pinch. Sin 
is here in the world. If we get caught in its 
toils God will help us out. 

It is a mark of the increasing develop- 
ment of Christian consciousness that we are 
not to-day laying entire stress on the thought 
of God as the Deliverer who comes in at the 
end as the final reserve. Eather, we are 
thinking of God as the Prompter of the very 
beginning of all conflicts against evil. It was 
God who at the very beginning set enmity 
in the heart of man against all the serpent 
brood of evil. The Christ spirit was at work 
in the heart of the first man who was moved 
to strike against evil. We must not think 
of this narrative as a looking forward to 
Christ merely as One who would some day 
come. In a profound and real sense, Christ 
is at the beginning of every struggle for 
righteousness. We look upon the very open- 



16 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

ing sentence of Genesis as a mark of the 
divineness of tlie story, "In the beginning, 
God." In the opening of John's Gospel, the 
writer tells ns of the Word which was in 
the beginning. We must think of Christ as 
at the beginning of our struggles against 
evil. He is in the first questionings, the stir- 
rings of the heart toward better things. The 
feeling of loathing for evil like the loathing 
of man against the serpent is a revelation 
of the Spirit of Christ. He is the Author 
as well as the Finisher of our struggle 
against the sin which is in the world. He 
Himself is on the frontier forcing the at- 
tacks. In fact, the success of the Christ 
kingdom depends upon its aggressiveness. 
The Eden story is being repeated in life after 
life to-day, but with a difEerence. In the 
Eden story we are told of a deliberate dis- 
obedience to a command given before the 
fruit of the tree had been touched. In our 
day we have been eating of the fruit of the 
tree with all good conscience. Suddenly the 



THE FOEEGLEAM 17 

command comes : ' ' Eat of the fruit no longer. 
Henceforth it is forbidden. ' ' That is to say, 
the growing conscience insists that things 
which once brought no sense of guilt are seen 
to be wrong if we keep on doing them. It 
is the Spirit of Christ which keeps thus forc- 
ing the conflict. 

The Christ Spirit is apparent also in 
something in the very narrative itself, con- 
sidered as a narrative. The Divine Spirit 
was not only in the conflict with evil, but 
was also in the account of the conflict with 
evil. The character of evil is seized with 
unerring accuracy. Evil is serpentine. It 
insinuates itself into the heart of man with 
the noiseless glide of the serpent. On the 
other hand, the victory is to come as men 
strike in a straightforward way at the evil. 
Their stamping with the heel is the true 
Christ method in dealing with sin. Christ 
does not attempt to conquer sin by stratagem 
or to outflank evil in any way. He strikes 
at it with the heel. 



18 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

In all illustrations which set forth the 
nature of the conflict of good with evil we 
have to be on our guard not to imply some- 
thing foreign to our purpose. We wish to 
suggest here an illustration drawn from the 
remark of a wise statesman as to the way- 
Democracy could overcome sedition and re- 
bellion against the righteous will of the vast 
mass of the people. Let the dashing military 
brilliancy be on the side of the rebellion. 
Let the rebellion be led by commanders of 
most subtle genius and lightning-like swift- 
ness. Yet the people will win, and the vic- 
tory of the people will come as the people 
see that, no matter how ably led p secession 
may be from the standpoint of brilliant gen- 
eralship, the simple determination of a right- 
eous people to strike directly and persistently 
at rebellion will come to victory in the end. 
That is to say, the straightforward blow of 
democracy, when once the whole people are 
fully aroused, will avail against keen general- 
ship, no matter how fine and acute. 



THE FOEEGLEAM 19 

The Christ method is not the method of 
brilliancy or subtlety or fascinating acute- 
ness. It is a method within reach of any in- 
telligence, however lowly. When sin arises, 
we are to strike at it. It may come upon us 
by quiet approaches, by fascinating bril- 
liancy, but the one method is always at hand 
—to strike and strike to the death. This set- 
ting forth of the essential Christ method 
shows that the Spirit of Christ Himself was 
present in this first story of evil. Jesus was 
called Jesus, for He was to save His people 
from their sins. The Spirit of Jesus is set 
forth in the story of the heel raised against 
the serpent. His Spirit is not merely antici- 
pated in the first chapters of Genesis, but is 
also in a measure revealed there. 



GOD WITH US 



GOD WITH US 

Matt, i, 23. 

Many classes of interpreters have contrib- 
uted to the understanding of this passage. 
First of all are the many theologians who 
have connected the passage with a great mir- 
acle and have seen in the miracle the sign of 
God's presence with His people. These the- 
ologians declare that to men lost in the 
thought of the world as a self-running 
system the Almighty has appeared with an 
extraordinary manifestation, setting aside 
the ordinary laws and inaugurating the 
unique career of our Lord in a unique way. 
We are thankful for this interpretation 
with its stress on the miraculous. We are a 
little prone to minimize the importance of 
the extraordinary in our day and to lay 
stress upon the divineness of the ordinary. 

23 



24 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

God is in all things, we say. We should not 
forget, however, that the world came to be- 
lieve that God is in all things in general 
through an emphasis on the doctrine that He 
is in some things in particular. We may be 
able to get along without emphasis on mir- 
acle to-day, but our emphasis on the natural 
would hardly have been possible if men of 
another day had not laid stress on the mir- 
acle. When men once found a manifestation 
of God in any extraordinary ''there," it was 
easy to find Him in an ordinary "here." 
The belief in the God of the extraordinary 
helped on to the belief in the God of the 
ordinary. If men had not first been im- 
pressed by the significance of the extraor- 
dinary in Christ, they would have paid little 
.attention to His revelation of the divine in 

the ordinary. 

God showed that He was with us by the 
birth of Christ. We are not able to stop, 
however, with interpretations which end with 
physical births. The truth that God is near 



GOD WITH US 25 

enough to the physical forces to use them or 
to suspend them according to His will is not 
enough. A physical wonder is not enough. 
Almost all will admit to-day the marvel of 
miracle that God is so near men that in Him 
they live and move and have their being. 
The more important question is as to 
whether God is with us in any other sense 
than that we are the creatures of His power. 

At this point the close students of the 
passage in its original setting come to us to 
tell us that it means that God is on our side. 
The words were first uttered, we are told, in 
connection with a definite crisis in Israel's 
history. At a certain historical emergency 
God showed Himself so decisively on the 
side of Israel that the mother named her 
new-born son Emmanuel, — God is with us. 
The birth of Christ was another such crisis. 
We can see the meaning so clearly that we 
can say as did the patriotic Israelitish 
mother, God is with us. 

We are thankful for this interpretation 



26 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

also. We are glad for those sudden crises 
in hnman history when God does show His 
plan. He showed Himself as with Israel in 
the old days and He showed Himself as with 
the world in the birth of Christ. Bnt the 
terms are still too large. We are glad for 
revelation to nations and to the world, bnt 
the ''ns" is still too large. We want some- 
thing that reaches ns with more of a sense 
of intimacy. And we want something more 
than a coming of God in a crisis, for after 
all we do not live in crises. 

The historical stndent adds his interpre- 
tation to that above. He does not see in the 
birth of Christ so mnch the sndden, swift 
revelation at a critical moment as the cnl- 
mination of a divine process reaching all 
.throngh Israel's history. God had been at 
work from the beginning speaking in divers 
portions the message of which the birth of 
Christ is the climax. 

We are thankfnl again. We delight to 
dwell on the long workings of those forces 



GOD WITH US 27 

which prepared for Christ and which finally 
found their top and crown in Him. The 
prophets did a great work in shaping the 
national ideal of God and Israel. There is 
nothing more inspiring about the Old Testa- 
ment than the way the popular ideal of the 
heroism of God changed from the conception 
of a warrior rejoicing with martial zest over 
the downfall of His enemies to the thought 
of a God who could help and uplift a suffer- 
ing servant, the ideal becoming filled con- 
stantly with a worthier moral meaning. As 
the prophets did their part, individuals real- 
ized the dreams of the seers, and finally the 
conceptions became regnant in the popular 
thought, expressing themselves in the laws 
of the people. By the way, we should do 
larger justice to the old Hebrew system of 
law as a factor working to prepare for 
Christ. We ordinarily think of the old law 
from the standpoint of Paul, and call it a 
schoolmaster to bring men to Christ by 
showing its own powerlessness to save. 



28 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

There is another side, however. The law- 
was a positive force working to make men 
decent and merciful and hnman as a prepa- 
ration for the coming of Christ. ''Thou 
Shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." 
This rule could have had no other aim than 
to train the people in mercy and humanity. 
And all through the old Jewish life, in the 
laws, ia the customs, in those simple human 
experiences which give such charm to sto- 
ries like the story of Ruth, the ancestress of 
Christ, the Spirit of the Lord was at work 
with the people to make the prophecies and 
the heroic deeds and the laws and the daily 
life a preparation for the comiag of Him 
who was indeed Emmanuel. All the good in 
the old system came to climax in Him. 

We rejoice in all this, but even this is not 
enough. God is indeed with us in the great 
historic movements, but still we lack some- 
thing intimate and personal. The play and 
inter-play of the long historic forces is 
dramatically interesting, but we as Individ- 



GOD WITH US 29 

uals desire something further still. We 
listen to those devout minds who tell ns that 
God is with ns as a spectator is ^^with'^ the 
actor of a drama. We are not living and 
dying alone. God is interested. If we conld 
only see we shonld find ourselves npon the 
center of a stage with high Heaven onr chief 
spectator,— applauding us when we win, sor- 
rowing with us when we fall. God is with 
us in the sense that the drama of our 
lives means more to Him than to any one 
else. 

It is indeed encouraging to know that we 
are not struggling unobserved, that among 
the cloud of heavenly witnesses who watch 
our course the most interested is God. We 
still call for something more, however. How 
sympathetic after all is the Great Spectator ? 
Does He understand from our side this grim 
and desperate game which we call life? Is 
He with us merely as a spectator, or has He 
ever been in the struggle Himself? Is there 
any way in :which He can come down from 



30 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

the galleries and wrestle with the wrestlers 
and run with the runners? 

Still another insists that we must ad- 
vance beyond the thought that in the coming 
of Christ we have merely the manifestation 
of God^s interest in us, and that we must 
think of God as abundantly showering good 
gifts upon us to reveal His interest in us. 
God is with us in Christ in the sense that 
Christ is the gift of God. The Giver is in 
the Gift. 

But how are we to think of the Giver? 
Is He such a Giver as a modern philanthro- 
pist? One of the limitations of modern phi- 
lanthropy is that the giver can not really get 
himself into his gift, or, rather, the receiver 
can not get the giver with the gift. The 
more widely the philanthropist gives, the 
more difficult it is to impart that personal 
touch which marks a gift with distinction. 
And the richer the giver the less the gift is 
apt to mean to him. He may give lavishly, 
as gifts go among men, and yet not really 



GOD WITH US 31 

give till lie feels. There is not much of one 's 
self in a gift which one does not feel. / 
Christ may be the Gift of God, but before '■ 
we can speak of the Gift as ^^God with ns'' 
we have to know something of what Christ 
is to God. Is Christ merely a hnman 
prophet through whom God has revealed 
Himself? If that is all that is much, to be 
sure, but not quite enough, for it would seem 
quite easy for God to call prophets into ex- 
istence. Such a gift would be like the gift 
of the rich man who might give out of great 
interest and sympathy, indeed, but at no vast 
cost to himself. 

To bring this rather rambling discussion 
to a point, we may say that in calling Christ 
the Son of God the Church has always had 
in mind the thought of Him as more than a 
human prophet merely. The Church has not 
always been able to define satisfactorily to 
herself, to say nothing of outsiders, just 
what she has meant by ^^Son," but she has 
meant more than man, and in her insistence 



32 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

upon tEat ^^more'' is the very heart of the 
Christmas message. Her theological state- 
ment may have limped, but her instinct has 
walked, even run, straight to the mark. She 
has craved the very deepest coming of God 
in Christ, and in trying to make Christ mean 
the most for God she has been trying to make 
Him mean the most for men. 

Is it not enough, some one may say, to 
think of God in Christ in the sense that 
Christ was a man of extraordinary capacity 
for religions spirit ? Is it not enough to say 
that Christ is in the religious world what 
Kant is in the realm of philosophy and 
Shakespeare in the realm of literature and 
Raphael in the world of art? Of course, the 
answer to this question will depend on the 
individual sense of need. Without reflecting 
in the least upon the many, many good per- 
sons who would say ^'yes'' to the question, 
we can not refrain from saying that such a 
placing of Christ would never finally satisfy 
the vast mass of believers. The contempla- 



GOD WITH US 33 

tion of Shakespeare and Kant and Eaphael 
makes ns indeed proud of the human race, 
but the closer we study the more we see the 
enormous distance between these great minds 
and ourselves. They tower aloft like moun- 
tains. Now many of us feel in the same way 
when we think of Christ merely as a man. 
Contradictory as it may sound, the thought 
that He is just a man puts a great gulf be- 
tween Him and us. We feel that with all 
His sympathy He is after all a genius with 
all the loneliness of genius. If, on the other 
hand, we may take the phrase ^^Son of Grod" 
as implying such a uniqueness of intimacy 
with God that in the earthly life of the Son 
the Father can be said in a certain real sense 
to have come to us Himself, the matter is 
quite diiferent. Christ then becomes not 
merely a revelation of how far a man can 
outdo his fellows in his approach to God, but 
rather a revelation of how far God can outdo 
all our expectations of Him in His approach 
toward man. It is just this that the Church 



34 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

lias had at heart in her many times bewilder- 
ing phrases concerning the divinity of Christ. 
She has been trying to guard the truth that 

' Christ meets human needs not so much by 
showing how far up man can go, but by show- 
ing how far down God can come. 

Understand, now, we are not trying to 
talk theology. We are not even trying to 
present a view which will impress all as 
logically consistent. We are simply trying 
to say that if Christ means so much to God 

' that He is the most Precious Gift God can 

I give us, if in the very coming of Christ we 
see the desire of God to lift us up to Hun- 

i self, then God's Fatherhood for us means 
most to us. The Gospel is not merely that 
God has wrought miracles for ns. A Creator 

.who could make a world might work mir- 
acles without any great cost to Himself. The 
Gospel is not that God has out of a bounteous 
storehouse showered good gifts upon us. A 
rich God, merely amiable and good-humored, 
might do that without calling forth respect, 



GOD WITH US 35 

not to say love, in response. No : the Gospel 
is that God sent His Son. We are to take 
the words for what they suggest in warm 
life-terms, not in metaphysical abstractions^ 
God with us means the surpassing love of 
God, not for man, or for humanity, but for 
His children. God is near us in nature, and 
in history, and in all forces that touch our 
lives for good. The message of Christmas is 
that He is especially near us in Christ. The 
Scriptures express the love of God in Christ 
in speaking of Christ as the Son of God. 
If we fill the words with rich human mean- 
ing we are close to the heart of the deepest 
reality in the universe, even the abounding 
love of God. God's power is upon us and, 
better still. His love is with us. To be sure, 
metaphysics is puzzled and raises questions 
at all this, but metaphysics has always been 
puzzled by the mysteries of love. But love 
has the first claim, and quite likely will have 
the last. 



THE GROUPS AROUND THE 

CRADLE 



THE GROUPS AROUND THE 

CRADLE 

Matt, a, 1-12 

The passage before ns introduces us to 
various persons and groups of persons in- 
terested in the new-bom Christ. For the 
moment at least the thought of Christ is 
uppermost in the minds of all these persons. 
Herod, the people of Jerusalem, the scribes 
and chief priests, the wise men, Mary— all 
these are set before us in the story of to-day 
as supremely interested in the child Jesus. 
It may be worth our while to think of the 
motives and spirit of these different minds 
as they pondered upon the coming of Christ. 

Herod 
We begin with Herod. Herod no sooner 
hears the word of the wise men than he 
turns Biblical and theological student. He 

89 



40 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

is profoundly interested forthwith in the 
Jewish Scriptures and in the prophecies of 
the birth of the Messiah. He diligently ques- 
tions the wise men also. For the moment 
there is not a more earnest student of Jew- 
ish religion in Jerusalem than Herod. If 
we are to think of the groups first interested 
in the birth of Christ as in a poetic sense 
representative of students who would ap- 
proach the same problem in a later day, we 
may see in Herod the type of a man who 
studies with an evil purpose— the man who 
would learn of Christianity for the sake of 
overthrowing Christianity. It must never 
be forgotten that such men are serious foes. 
Their power must never be underestimated. 
Oftentimes the foe of the Christ knows more 
.about the Christ than does the disciple. 
Herod learned so much about Christ that it 
took a dream sent by the Almighty to throw 
him off the track. And yet Herod was never 
really on the track. He could not imagine 
any other kingdom than one like his own; 



laEOUPS ABOUND THE CEADLE 41 

the thought of a kingdom of righteousness 
was utterly beyond him. Herod is a type of 
the bad man whom knowledge of the Christ 
makes worse. The news that Christ was 
bom troubled the evil depths of Herod's soul 
and brought deceit and murder to the sur- 
face. Happily, we can believe that students 
of the Herod type have become fewer and 

fewer. 

Jerusalem 

All Jerusalem was troubled together with 
Herod, the narrative tells us. Jerusalem 
may stand in our thought as representative 
of that vast mass of persons who in a vague 
way dread the coming of Christ through fear 
of the upheaval and revolution which He 
may make. On that night when the message 
of the wise men came, all that Jerusalem 
thought about was one immediate fact— here 
may be a new claimant to the throne. The 
present Herod will fight to retain supremacy. 
That means that we, the people of Jeru- 
salem, must see our streets red with slaugh- 



42 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

ter. The new King may be the legitimate 
claimant, but His birth can mean only trou- 
ble. He may be able to establish finally the 
glory dreamed of by the old prophets, but 
He will have to wade through woe. We shall 
drink deep of the woe, and may not taste 
the glory. Some such reflections as these 
may have caused all Jerusalem to be trou- 
bled with Herod. Just such reflections as 
these have met other reports of approaching 
manifestations of the Christ. If the Christ 
spirit seems about to call for advance in in- 
dustrial or political or social conditions, or 
even in matters of ordinary morality, more 
than one group of frightened souls will think 
not of the ultimate glory but of the imme- 
diate struggle, and be ** troubled." Here, 
again, we may happily believe that the num- 
ber of those who will bear their part of the 
cost of getting Herod out and Christ in is 
constantly increasing. Such persons do not 
minimize the seriousness of the difficulties. 
Christ did not come to oust Herod actually, 



GEOUPS ABOUND THE CRADLE 43 

but if Christ could have put His spirit into 
the heart of Herod, many political readjust- 
ments would have been necessary. No matter 
where the pinch comes, however, there are, 
perhaps, more to-day than ever before who 
are willing to welcome the Christ, even if He 
call for the vastest changes and sacrifices. 

The Chief Pkiests and Scbibes 

The chief priests and scribes were also 
interested when the wise men came with their 
word about the star. Herod called these re- 
ligious authorities into consultation with him 
at once, and set them to looking up the 
prophecies with a new zeal. We do no in- 
justice to the scribes and chief priests when 
we characterize them as interested in the 
coming of Christ, largely from a technical 
and professional standpoint. While we are 
not able to indulge in wholesale condemna- 
tions, we know that the scribes and priests 
never came as a class to any kind of spiritual 
insight into the greatness of Christ. Along 



44 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

witli the utmost familiarity with writings 
about Christ went an utter foreignness to the 
Spirit of Christ. So we are to think of this 
group of men interested in the coming of 
Christ as representative of the class of stu- 
dents to whom Christ is merely an intel- 
lectual problem. This is not intended in the 
slightest to reflect on intellectual approach 
to the problems of Christianity, but to indi- 
cate the futility of intellectualism when it 
becomes self-sufficient and narrowly tech- 
nical. Such intellectualism was interested 
and aroused at the birth of Christ: we need 
not be surprised to find it interested and 
aroused at every stirring of the Christ spirit 
since. It can hardly be counted among the 
allies of Christ. At the best it is apt to run 
-off into literalism, and at the worst it leads 
itself to blind assault on that fine, intuitive, 
spiritual understanding which is the real dis- 
cerner of the Christ. This spiritual discern- 
ment is both the root and flower of true and 
vital scholarship. 



GROUPS AROUND THE CRADLE 45 

The Wise Mek 

The chief priests and scribes were 
seekers after knowledge. The wise men 
seem to have been in search of wisdom. 
Where the scribes sought bare literal fact, 
the wise men looked for guiding and con- 
trolling principle. In the scribes the in- 
tellect alone was athirst. In the wise men 
there was a call of the whole nature for the 
streams of deep and satisfying life. We may 
think of the wise men as lifelong seekers 
after spiritual understanding. They had, no 
doubt, left no stone unturned for the sake 
of reaching the highest wisdom. They were 
not afraid to pay any price. They shrank 
from no hardships. In all that they did we 
see the marks of wisdom. They knew the 
might and value of a real King. They knew 
the difference between the real and the sham 
kingliness. Herod was actually in control at 
Jerusalem, but they had no gold or frank- 
incense or myrrh for Herod and no worship 
for him. They were not to be misled by 



46 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

outward appearances. There was n»t mucH 
to suggest royalty in the inn at Bethlehem, 
but something told the wise men that they 
were in the presence of real kingliness. They 
felt that after their far travelings they had 
come to an end. An inner discernment en- 
abled them to see that the King of wisdom 
had at last come. The wise men stand in 
adoring interest beside the new-born Christ 
as representatives of the wisdom-seekers in 
all ages who finally arrive at the truth which 
satisfies the inner yearnings. They knew 
less, so far as matter-of-fact information 
was concerned, about the promised Messiah 
than did the chief priests and the scribes. 
In spiritual discernment, however, they were 
true King-seekers. The scribes would have 
. objected that the wise men were astrologers, 
and that their previous reflections were so 
full of error that their pronouncement could 
only be mistaken. The scribes would have 
called the findings of the wise men the wild 
guesses of mistaken laymen, and outside lay- 



aKOUPS ABOUND THE CEADLE 47 

men at that, but the laymen and not the 
professionalists had the right of it. 

Mary 

Our lesson mentions another character- 
Mary, the mother of Jesus. It would be 
almost sacrilege to attempt to enter into the 
thought of Mary at the time of the visit of 
the wise men. She stood in an altogether 
unique relation to Christ. There were some 
things which she could ponder in her own 
heart with the consciousness that these were 
for her alone. Still, without attempting to 
imagine to ourselves the wonderings and 
conjectures and forebodings and joys of 
Mary, may we not think of her as the rep- 
resentative of those whose interest in Christ 
is even more than that of the wisest seekers 
after wisdom? May we not think of Mary's 
experience as in a degree repeated in the 
lives of those who have come so close to 
Christ that their interest in Him is inde- 
scribably definite and personal. Such do not 



48 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

think of Christ merely as the Fountain of 
wisdom and of life. By a process of per- 
sonal identification with His interests they 
have come to that kind of spiritual kinship 
with Him which Jesus must have had in 
mind when He claimed those that do the will 
of God as kinsmen. Christ is not the mere 
personification of truth. The relation to 
Him can he closer than a relation to a "per- 
sonification" of anything. 

The Thoughts of Many Heaets Revealed 

The thoughts of many hearts shall be 
revealed by Him, was said of Christ. The 
words were true, even as the Child lay in His 
cradle. Herod hears of Christ, and Herod's 
cruel hatred comes to light Jerusalem 
hears, and is troubled. The chief priests 
hear, and betake themselves to their tech- 
nical studies. The wise men see, and their 
inner wisdom appears in their worship. 
Mary gazes, and the depths of her nature 
appear in her pondering silence. And these 



GBOUPS ABOUND THE CRADLE 49 

persons and groups of persons are repre- 
sentatives. To-day, every day, the word 
comes that some new manifestation of the 
Christ is at hand. And Herod hates, and 
Jerusalem is troubled, and the scribes look 
away from the spirit to the letter, and the 
wise men worship and the spiritual kinsmen 
of Christ feel anew His sorrows and His 
joys. 



THE WISE MEN 



THE WISE MEN 

Matthew ii, 1-12 

The wise men in our story were in all like- 
lihood astrologers. For many centuries be- 
fore tlie coming of Christ the stars had been 
studied in Arabia and Persia and other 
Eastern countries with results which would 
do credit to modern scientists. Of course, 
the theories of astronomy in that olden time 
were altogether mistaken, but the facts were 
observed and recorded with a patience and 
skill which are the wonder of later students. 
To this highly trained intellectual class 
the wise men of the story probably belonged. 
In their thoughtful gazings into the sky they 
had been impressed with some unusual phe- 
nomenon which we do not now understand. 
It may have been a conjunction of planets, 
or the appearance of some cometlike wan- 

53 



54 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

derer witHn the limits of our solar system, 
or some altogether extraordinary manifesta- 
tion which arrested the attention and stim- 
ulated the inquiry of these men. Whatever 
the nature of the light, it started the wise 
men, according to the New Testament story, 
on a physical journey which ended at the inn 
at Bethlehem and upon a spiritual pilgrim- 
age which ended with the .worship of Jesus. 
If we look at all deeply into the astrology 
of the wise men of old we are impressed with 
the imperfections of their teachings. The 
facts were, of course, the same for them as 
for us, but in their interpretation of the fact 
was much crudity and error. The stars were 
supposed to have a controlling influence in 
human lives. When the astrologers spoke of 
"His star" they probably meant the star 
■ which was to preside over Christ's earthly 
destinies. Our old expression, *'bom under 
a lucky star," is a survival from astrology. 
Moreover, the crudity of astrology was not 
only intellectual, but also moral. The star- 



THE WISE MEN 65 

gazer was often tempted to practice fraud, 
and often yielded. He too often gave him- 
self to black magic, which, was especially 
black in the nse to which it was often put— 
the rnle of men through terror and super- 
stition. 

Yet to the representatives of this imper- 
fect system the star of Christ came. Every 
step of their reasoning about the star was 
probably tainted with error, but every step 
brought them nearer Jerusalem. Is it not 
often thus in the history of nations and of 
individuals ? If we had to wait until we had 
perfect intelligence, who would find God? 
Does not God come so close to men that He 
can work through their imperfect under- 
standing and guide every mistaken step to- 
ward Jerusalem? The treasures of our mod- 
em science have come as men have been sin- 
cerely willing to act out the measure of truth 
which they have possessed. As they have 
thus acted God has used even the mistakes 
to help them onward toward Himself. It 



66 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

would be interesting to look throngli the his- 
tory of the world and trace the beneficial in- 
fluences of mistakes which men made in a 
sincere search for truth. If Golumbus had 
not been mistaken he would hardly have 
sailed for the West, and if the early chem- 
ists had not thought that lead could be trans- 
muted into gold we might not have had the 
wealth of scientific treasure in which we now 
revel. In a classic bit of satire Swift makes 
us smile at the poor scientist whom Gulliver 
found in his travels, the soot-covered experi- 
menter who was trying to extract sunbeams 
from cucumbers ! We should not laugh our- 
selves into forgetfulness of the fact, how- 
ever, that scientific progress has often come 
as a side discovery when the searcher was 
looking for an actual absurdity, a good deal 
^ as if Gulliver's scientist should have in his 
foolish search added greatly to this world's 
knowledge both of cucumbers and of sun- 
shine. As it is in science, so also is it in re- 
ligion—the path to truth sometimes lies 



THE WISE MEN 57 

througli mistake. Suppose the modem crit- 
ics are right in their thought of the begin- 
nings of the world's religion. Suppose that 
the idea of immortality first got afloat 
through dreams, or that the first idea of God 
was very crude, or that there is an alloy of 
myth and legend and mistake in all religious 
records? What of it? Can not the same 
God who came down to the imperfect knowl- 
edge of the astrologer and pointed it toward 
Bethlehem likewise hang a star before the 
imperfect intelligence of all seekers after 
Himself? 

We have said that astrology studied the 
stars to find their influence on human des- 
tiny. The expectation was mistaken, of 
course, but what rich suggestion there is in 
the thought that the highest truth has bear- 
ing on the practical issues of life, and what 
fine symbolism is to be found in the fact that 
men reading the stars for their message for 
the earth found their way to Bethlehem. 
Christ is the very King of all those who seek 



58 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

the loftiest tnith for the most practical pur- 
pose. He belongs not to those who look at 
the stars with no thought of the ennobling 
influence of celestial contemplation for ter- 
restrial deeds, nor to those who never lift 
their eyes off the brown earth. Rather He 
is the Leader of those who take the loftiest 
conceptions for the enrichment of the com- 
monest life. His truth, lofty as it is, is the 
most usable truth. Upon one occasion Jesus 
said, "I am the Light of the world," and 
with this exalted conception in His mind 
stooped to moisten clay for the anointing of 
a blind man's eyes. At another time He re- 
flected for a moment upon the profoundest 
significance of His existence— the fact that 
He came from God and that He was about to 
go to God— and then began to wash the dis- 
' ciples' feet! It was not to be wondered at 
that those who tried to find in the skies mean- 
ings for earth's deeds found the path to 
Bethlehem. 

There is a larger significance in the jour- 



THE WISE MEN 69 

ney of the wise men, however. We have here 
the first hint of the disturbance and read- 
justment in the vast outside world through 
the coming of Jesus. If we could to-day 
create a new star by fiat and swing it into 
space it would instantly disturb the orbits 
of the present system, and, if large enough, 
would make itself the center of a new 
system. The appearance of the star at Beth- 
lehem meant the formation of new orbits. 
These wise men were the first of the Gen- 
tiles to feel the subtle gravitation of the new 
center, and swung out of their orbit instantly 
with a new mental and spiritual adjustment. 
It was just as unreasonable for the Jews to 
expect that the work of the Christ would be 
confined to them as it would be for a scientist 
to expect a newcomer into the solar system 
to halt its attractive power at the frontiers 
of the system, or the new sun to screen its 
light from the outlying regions. 

The star of Bethlehem reaches out for 
the highest and best everywhere. Nothing 



60 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

in the course of history is more inspiring 
than the certainty with which the best in 
Gentilism swings at last into the Christ- 
centered orbit. At the moment when Christ 
was bom He came into the outer edge of the 
great Eoman Empire. Within a few centu- 
ries Christianity had picked up all that was 
good in Eome and was whirling it in a new 
orbit around itself. The very roads of Eome 
were used for the new truth, and the great 
schemes of law and administration were 
given a loftier purpose than their founders 
had ever dreamed of. What Eome had done 
on a more material side Greece had done on 
a more intellectual side. Where the Eoman 
thought had busied itself with the creation 
of a splendid material empire, the Greek 
mind had fashioned an even more splendid 
thought empire. It was not long before the 
Christian fathers put Christ at the center of 
Greek thought, and made the Greek idea of 
Divine Word a mighty commentary on the 
Incarnation of the Word of God in Jesus 



THE WISE MEN 61 

Christ. So it has been in later times. The 
shaggy strength of the Teutons quieted down 
into a fixed Christ-controlled path. The 
present-day achievements of our marvelous 
scientific systems are being used in Chris- 
tian ministry. 

It would not be inappropriate to use this 
passage about the wise men as a missionary 
lesson. The gravitation of the outside world 
toward Christ has not ceased. The some- 
what fanciful suggestion is sometimes made 
that we have in the story of the wise men a 
prophecy of the movement of the East to- 
ward the West, the Oriental wealth of intel- 
lect seieking a king in the more practical Oc- 
cidental leadership. The suggestion is rather 
read into the test than found there, but 
the principle of spiritual gravitation which 
makes for a Christ-centered system leads us 
to believe that the day is not far distant 
when that marvelous and luxuriant spiritual 
life of the Orient which has been the wonder 
of students from the beginning shall in spite 



62 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

of its mistakes and follies find its way to 
BetUehem and enrich tlie Christian system 
•with, its gold and frankincense and myrrh. 
In our zeal for the betterment of the outside 
world of Gentilism we sometimes forget the 
enrichment which is to come to Christianity 
itself through bringing all religions to the 
Christ. The believers in Buddhism and Con- 
fucianism have rich gifts which are one day 
to be laid at the feet of Christ. For the sake 
of the glorification of Christ Hunself we 
should lend to the rays of the star of Beth- 
lehem the intensity of our own burning zeal. 



THE SHEPHERDS 



THE SHEPHERDS 

Luke a, 8-15 

GOD'S revelations are not primarily for 
the learned in technical scholarship or for 
the minds gifted with exceptional genius. 
They are quite as likely to come to shep- 
herds as to readers of books. The coming 
of God in Christ has the large part of its 
meaning for the common people of the world. 
The shepherds are the representatives of the 
faithful souls who do Grod's works in the 
world by laboring to keep men in clothing 
and food. The world is never more than 
one year from famine. That is to say, there 
is never more than enough food at one time 
on earth to keep men for a year if the work 
of production should cease. But the work 
of production does not cease. The shepherds - 
are the type of those who go forth to stand 
between the world and famine and naked- 

5 65 



66 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

ness. Keeping watch against tlie wolf wliicli 
would kill tlie sheep, they are keeping watch 
also against that more terrible wolf of human 
hunger and pain which is never very far 
from any door. Is there not a divine fitness 
in God's sending the angels to the shep- 
herds! For what class has revelation more 
of joy than for the workers of the world? 
And where is it more likely to receive a 
cordial welcome than in the hearts of the 
simple folk who faithfully plod on through 
the years with the work which Providence 
has laid upon them! These are very apt to 
be more deeply educated than the more ar- 
tificially trained. Higher education is not 
always deeper education. The firsthand con- 
tact with reality in the ordinary walks of 
life, the patient self-control which comes with 
long performance of an exacting task, the 
tact and wisdom which are necessary for 
success even in dealing with sheep, are quite 
as likely to beget the deep receptivity for 
divine things as are the artificial courses of 



THE SHEPHEEDS 67 

the schools. Let no man be held back from 
expecting a revelation from God's angels 
through lack of technical training. One thing 
is sure. No carefully trained graduate of 
the best university could have told his story 
with more effectiveness than these shepherds 
described what they had seen in the fields. 
Quite likely Christ chose His immediate 
apostles from the lowly walks of life because 
they were the best educated for His purpose 
—for hearing and telling the good news of 
God. 

We are not, however, to think that the 
shepherds in this story acted simply in a 
representative capacity. They were not 
chosen to be witnesses of the vision and 
hearers of the voices simply because they 
were shepherds and common people. In 
some respects they were very uncommon, 
and we should stop to think of these men not 
only because of the class they came from, 
but because of the character of the men them- 
selves. 



68 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

We are not to assume as a matter of 
course that just everybody and anybody 
would have seen tbe ligbt of the divine glory 
and would bave beard tbe divine voices. If 
God's accustomed metbods are any clue to 
His dealings on tbis marvelous nigbt, we 
must say tbat tbe sbepberds saw angels and 
beard voices, because tbeir minds were open 
to angels and voices. It would seem tbe mostj 
natural tbing in tbe world for sbepberds- 
keeping watcb over tbeir flocks by nigbt to 
keep watcb on tbe skies also, but many a 
midnigbt watcber does not tbink of tbe skies. > 
He tbinks only of tbe flocks— of tbe business) 
immediately in band. But tbe man wbo 
tbinks only of tbe business in band does not 
always get tbe largest messages for tbe 
world. Tbe sbepberd wbo brings us good 
tidings wbicb sball be to all people must be 
more tban a sbepberd. He must be sbep- 
berd with an eye open to tbe skies. A man 
,wbo was a sbepberd and tbat only migbt 
^ not bave seen anytbing on tbat famous nigbt. 



THE SHEPHERDS 69 

If there had been nothing but sheep in the 
inner thought, quite likely there would have ' 

been nothing but sheep in the outer revela- 
tion—nothing of real significance we mean. ^ 
Shepherds who were shepherds and nothing 
more might have seen light and heard voices, 
but they would not have caught the mean- 
ing. What a man sees depends upon what 
the man is ; there is no more commonplace ^, 
and yet mightily significant truth taught in 
the schools than this. Not every shepherd 
could see an angel if one stood beside him. 
He might think that he had seen a ghost or ' 
a demon. Not every shepherd could have I 
heard such a message. No; the shepherds \ 
were there not merely as representatives of 
a class, but because of what they were them- 
selves. They were shepherds, but something 
more— shepherds who could see up as well 
as down, who could see angels as well as 
sheep. ' 

Another feature in this story is the ex- 
traordinary power with which these shep- ^ 



70 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

herds seized the essential in the revelation. 
The usual course for the ordinary human 
mind in the presence of an unusual revela- 
tion is to seize upon and he impressed hy 
the unusual, especially if that unusual is at 
all spectacular. Here is a revelation which 
is represented as heing spectacular. There 
are a vision of angels, and a great light, and 
a heavenly chorus. It would be very easy 
for the mind, even though it were open to 
visions, to lay stress on the non-essentials. 
What was the light like? Was it like day- 
light, or stronger, or weaker? And who 
would not like to know how an angel ap- 
pears? Does he look like a man? Does he 
walk or does he fly? What is the manner 
of his speech? And then the multitude- 
how great a multitude was it? These ques- 
'tions seem ridiculous, and possibly irrev- 
erent, but they seem so partly because they 
are not in the story. Yet they are precisely 
,. the kind of questions that the ordinary mind 
/ would be likely to ask, and they concern the 



THE SHEPHEEDS 71 

features for which the ordinary mind would 
be likely to look. In days that had departed 
from the simplicity of the first revelation 
men supposed to be wise asked just such 
questions as these. Yet when our minds 
enter into the spirit of the story the ques- 
tions seem far-fetched and out of place. The 
revelations which really come from God 
center around a message. They come to 
minds that can see and hear the message, to 
the exclusion of everything else. We get 
nothing from the story of these shepherds 
except the great truth concerning the tidings, 
which means that the shepherds could be 
trusted to tell the message. To put the 
thought in colloquial language, it requires 
more than an ordinary mind to get the point 
of a surpassing revelation, and having 
seized the point, to keep it. Possibly the 
most wonderful fact about the story told by 
the shepherds is to be found in what it does 
not say. It does not tell us about angels or 
about the marvelous light, but it does give 



72 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

us the heart of tlie message. A really divine 
message is almost always brief. If the mes- 
sage begins to lengthen out under the telling, 
■we may be pretty sure that the main point 
is being dimmed by irrelevant details. This 
is a mark of the genuineness of any extraor- 
dinary revelation from God— it bears an ex- 
traordinary meaning. The question is not as 
to how the recipient of the message felt or 
as to how spectacular was the manifestation ; 
the question, rather, is as to what the mes- 
sage means, now that we have it. Of recent 
years some curious psychological investiga- 
tors have forced upon our attention the fact 
that the emotional attendants of experiences 
which have always seemed marvelous in re- 
ligion can be produced by other agencies 
than the religious— that hypnotism and in- 
, toxicants and narcotics will produce the emo- 
tional crises that seem so wonderful when we 
see them m religious excitement. But when 
the investigators have gone on to conclude 
that therefore religious experience is of no 



THE SHEPHEEDS 73 

more worth than these other experiences, we 
call a halt. We point out that the significant 
element in a religious revelation is its mean- 
ing. The final question is always, ' ' What of 
it?'' In the case of the hypnotism and other 
things, ^'Nothing of it." In the case of the 
shepherds and their message, ^^ Everything 
of it." 

Again we are told that the shepherds 
went with haste to Bethlehem. What did 
they do with the sheep? We are not told 
that there were any volunteers to stay with 
them, or that they drew lots as to who should 
stand guard, or that they went to Bethlehem 
in turns, or that they waited till day. The 
narrative would have us understand that 
they left the sheep and went. Eaising this 
point seems very childish, no doubt, but there 
is sense in the questions after all. The 
point is just this, that the ordinary duties 
have to be put to one side when the extraor- 
dinary revelation flashes in the sky. We 
must say that the revelation put before the 



tf 



74 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

shepHerds for the moment a higher duty, 
which may have led to the abandonment of 
the lower. As a matter of fact, the sheep 
seem to have suffered no harm by the ab- 
sence of the shepherds. And suppose they 
had suffered harm— suppose they had all 
been killed. Would the loss of a few sheep 
have been too great a price to pay for the 
privilege of the revelation which that night 
came to the shepherds? No doubt this point 
raises a smile with some, but all such need 
to remember how many persons meet the 
command to go over the hill to the manger 
at Bethlehem with the question, "Who is to 
look after the sheep?" To which question 
the adequate reply is. When the vision points 
toward Bethlehem it is not a matter of abso- 
lute necessity that anybody look after the 

, sheep. 

Then the sign itself —how in keeping with 
the divine method is the direction to seek for 
a King in swaddling clothes and lying in a 
manger? Wonder-loving human nature, if 



THE SHEPHEEDS 75 

left to itself, would seek the marvelous in 
the unusual and would try to seek the un- 
usual with the marvelous. ^^Show us the 
Father,'' said Philip, ^^and it sufficeth us.'' 
He desired a glimpse of Grod on a throne. 
He would have liked truth in some more 
spectacular form than in a human life. The 
shepherds might have sought a king else- 
where if they had not been given this definite 
direction, for, simple-hearted and truth-lov- 
ing as they were, they would hardly have 
thought of swaddling clothes and manger as 
marks of royalty. One of the messages that 
shepherds need is that they are to seek for 
God's coming in lowly circumstances. There 
is in most of us a false humility which leads 
to skepticism of the simple and common 
revelations which are made nearest us. We 
do not really believe the voices in our very 
presence to be prophetic. We have not 
learned how to sanctify the ordinary by 
conceiving of it as a means by which God 
can speak to us. We are not only skeptical 



76 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

of tlie importance of that which lies closest 
at tand, but we are also a little skeptical as 
to whether God can do much with the ordi- 

- nary. There is a trace of unworthy skep- 
ticism of God in our search for signs. God 
has sometimes to send angels to the shep- 
herds to help them see the value of men like 
themselves. He uses the extraordinary to 
enforce the importance of the ordinary. He 

i^ puts strange lights in the heavens to start 
men to looking into mangers. He sets the 
angels singing to teach men the significance 

of an infant's cry. 

And lest we seem to have trifled with 
the serious responsibilities of daily life by 
suggesting, perhaps at too great length, that 
there are occasions when the ordinary duty 
has to be ignored, we hasten to remark that, 
- according to the story of these wonderful 
shepherds, they returned to their flocks when 
they had finished their task of paying honor 
to the Christ at Bethlehem. We have said 
all along that they were more than shep- 



THE SHEPHEEDS 77 

herds. Now we say that they must have 
been better even as shepherds from having 
seen and listened to the angelic voices. These 
wise shepherds did not feel any call to 
abandon their ordinary tasks after the visit 
to Bethlehem. They do not seem to have 
given themselves any new dignities because 
of the great experience through which they 
had passed. They told the story with such 
, pimple effectiveness that it has come down to 
us to-day. They did nothing to exaggerate 
their own part. They were so modest that 
we have to read between the lines to see how 
thoroughly our knowledge of the message of 
the midnight skies is due to their alertness 
and their open-heartedness. They did not 
seek even to preserve their names in con- 
nection with the story. They went back to 
their flocks, to be shepherds, no doubt, to the 
end, and we may well believe better shep- 
herds than those who were shepherds and 
nothing more. The fields took on a new 
sacredness because of the vision they had 



78 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

seen in them. Their work was more digni- 
fied in their own sight becanse the divine 
revelation which had reached off to the dis- 
tant wise men had not failed to touch the 
shepherds, just over the brow of the hill. 
There was more joy, more poetry, more di- 
vinity about their work than ever before. 
They were better shepherds because they 
were more than shepherds. 



THE BOY JESUS 



THE BOY JESUS 

Luke a, 52 

1 HE one word which best describes the life 
of the boy Jesus as that life is set before us 
in the gospel is naturalness. The early be- 
lievers who thought to fill the gaps in the 
Gospels with imaginary narratives of a boy 
who could touch clay pigeons into life or 
bring out of a vat filled with blue coloring 
mixture red and yellow cloths entirely missed 
the point. They did not see the life of Jesus 
in its naturalness. If they had understood 
the real humanity of the growing Christ they 
would have seen that there is no real gap in , 

the narrative. There is silence, to be sure, | 

but just such silence as is natural to any i 

career in its stages of preparation. It would j 

certainly have been unnatural for Christ to 

i 

have broken the silence of a normal boyhood , 

6 81 i 



82 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

with such, astoundingly grotesque feats of 
magic as the writers of the apocryphal Gos- 
pels attribute to Him. 

There is no gap in the narrative of the 
early life of Jesus. In the few verses which 
comprise our present basis for discussion 
there is really a lavish wealth of material for 
the understanding of the life of the youthful 
Christ. Every detail enforces this character- 
istic of naturalness which can be taken as 
the key word of the story. The boy Jesus 
goes up to the city with His parents. He 
has the same natural curiosity which marks 
every boy, except that where the merely 
human boy gazes with absorbed attention 
upon camels and soldiers and fig sellers, the 
Divine Boy feels a passionate craving for 
the temple. The fires of sacrifice, the solemn 
chants, the ceremonies of the priests, all 
claim His attention till He loses thought of 
Himself and of the parents who have brought 
Him to Jerusalem. With the same activity 
with which the merely human boy would ask 



THE BOY JESUS 83 

questions about camel-driving and weapon- 
wielding, Jesus plies the priests. The same 
intuitive quickness which other boys show in 
grasping the secrets of the street scenes that 
arouse the boy-wonder Jesus shows in light- 
ing upon the meaning of the problems which 
the doctors are discussing. In hearing the 
teachers and in asking them questions, in 
gazing into the faces of the worshipers, in 
sympathizing with the men who had evidently 
come to the temple seeking help for troubled 
hearts, Jesus finds a profound satisfaction 
which makes Him feel more completely at 
home than in Joseph's house at Nazareth. 
It is this feeling of being at home which 
gives us the clue to the meaning of the much- 
misunderstood word to His mother. We are 
not to put a touch of unfilial independence 
in the question of Jesus to Mary, ''How is 
it that ye sought Me?'' He asks, ''Where 
could I have been but in My Father's house?" 
It is as if an ordinary boy should have asked 
why his mother sought him anywhere else 



84 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

tlian where the camel "ships" were coming 
in ofE the deserts or the Roman soldiers were 
busy at their drill. Jesus had forgotten 
Himself in His absorption with the temple 
just as the ordinary boy might forget him- 
self in rapt contemplation of an Oriental 
street scene. Naturally His heart found sat- 
isfaction in whatever pointed toward God. 
The temple scene shows this spontaneous and 
natural longing of Jesus for the divine. 

The inborn divinity of Jesus shows itself 
just as naturally in the presence of the glo- 
ries of the temple life as inborn artistic taste 
would show itself in a genius brought at the 
age of twelve into a splendid art gallery. 
There was immediate spontaneous response 
to the divine suggestiveness of rite and sym- 
bol and priestly word. The narrative reveals 
to us clearly, however, that the natural di- 
vinity of Christ was also naturally and spon- 
taneously human. Just the slighest touch 
of imagination will enable us to see in the 
one or two verses which summarize for us 



THE BOY JESUS 85 

the life of Jesus at Nazareth a wonderfully 
full picture of a lovable and spontaneous 
youthfulness. 

First of all, we are told that the Child 
grew. We are to take these words for just 
what they say and what they obviously mean. 
They overthrow at one stroke the thought of 
Christ which makes Him God living behind 
a mask of flesh without really entering into 
human experiences. The conception that the 
Son of God gave up nothing of the heavenly 
life in becoming a man is not drawn from 
the Scriptures. We have here, too, the death- 
blow to that pestilent, practical heresy which 
holds that there is anything to stunt full and 
normal growth in early turning to God. The 
life of the Boy Jesus was on the physical 
side like the life of the ordinary Nazareth 
boy. The parable which afterward told of 
the children playing at wedding and funeral 
in the market-place was probably a remi- 
niscence of the streets of Nazareth. In any 
case, it reveals a sympathy with childhood 



i?- 



86 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

which must have come from the Master's 
having been a real Boy. 

We are told of the Master's wisdom. 
Wisdom consists more in knowing how than 
in knowing what. It means that from the 
early years Jesus began to show a tactful 
skill in dealing with men and things which 
marked Him out as wise. The practical 
heresy that there must be a departure into 
sin for the sake of knowledge gets its final 
blow here. The youth sometimes feels that 
the sinners are the wise men— that the scof- 
fers know more about life's real philosophy 
and the wordlings more about practical suc- 
cess than those whose feet have never left 
the correct path. Jesus knew what was in 
man and what was in the world without sow- 
ing wild oats. 

We are next told that Jesus grew in favor 
with man. We get here a glimpse of His 
early popularity. He had the favor of the 
community in which He lived. This is one 
of those sidelights which uncover vast 



THE BOY JESUS 87 

stretches at a single flash. We have only 
to look at the kind of youth universally un- 
popular to know some characteristics Jesus 
had not. Men do not like precocious youth : 
Jesus was not precocious, in spite of His 
thirst for knowledge. Men do not like the 
conceited youth: Jesus was not conceited. 
Men do not like aloofness or supercilious- 
ness : Jesus had neither of these. Men do not 
like a censorious spirit: Jesus was without 
censoriousness. In short, every character- 
istic which can be looked upon as universally 
making for unpopularity was lacking in 
Jesus. The people of Nazareth thought well 
of the youthful Jesus. Of course, Jesus be- 
came unpopular in after years, but this was 
because of the heroic adoption of a course 
against public opinion rather than because 
of personal peculiarities. 

There was nothing in the divinity of 
Jesus to make unnecessary His subjection 
to Mary and Joseph. He was natural in the 
sense that He needed them. Joseph and 



88 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

Mary must have liad great confidence in the 
ability of Jesus to take care of Himself, for 
they went a day's journey homeward from 
Jerusalem without asking what had become 
of their Son. They thought that He was as 
well able as any boy of His age to take care 
of Himself, but they recognized His depend- 
ence upon them in spite of their conscious- 
ness of His exceptional character, as that 
had been revealed to them, and they no doubt 
gave the best of themselves to the training 
and discipline of Jesus. We are to think of 
the influence of the parents as of great effi- 
ciency in awakening Jesus for the plan of 
God for Him. What we know of Mary con- 
vinces us that she was personally devout, a 
patriotic lover of Israel, submissive to the 
will of God as that was revealed to her. 
" Joseph was a just man, likewise devout. The 
few references to him are all consistent with 
each other, and give us the image of a man 
of profound thoughtfulness, without impa- 
tience or evil temper, anxious only to find 
and follow the path of righteousness. 



THE BOY JESUS 89 

The word in our text which is translated 
* increased ^' in one version and ^^ advanced'' 
in the other, means ^ ^ to lengthen by hammer- 
ing/' as an iron worker lengthens a bit of 
iron by pounding it upon the anvil. We have 
no desire to push etymological suggestions 
beyond reasonable limits, but the primary 
significance of this word makes it permis- 
sible for us to hint that the naturalness of the 
divinity of Jesus did not relieve Him of the 
necessity of learning in that severe school of 
experience, where the lessons seem actually 
beaten into our characters. The world is 
largely hammer and anvil for most of us. 
We are struck into shape with painful blows. 
If the tradition is correct that Joseph died 
shortly after this trip to Jerusalem, we can 
readily see that one hammer on the character 
of Jesus was the struggle for daily bread. 
Quite likely, too, there were lessons which 
His intelligence had to master, not by the 
swift intuition which showed itself in the 
temple, but by the more laborious process of 



90 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

intellectual hammer-swinging. And if Christ 
had temptations after the scene in the desert 
He may certainly have had them before. In 
severe inward struggle He may have taken 
some steps toward moral maturity. 



THE WORD BECOME FLESH 



J 

I 



> 



THE WORD BECOME FLESH 

John iy 14 

In the beginning was the Word. It is a 
great thing to have a word standing at the 
beginning of any great enterprise. A word 
means definiteness of purpose. In the be- 
ginning was not a vague idea, not a mystic 
and inexpressible feeling, not a half-con- 
scious impulse, but a Word. We say to the 
schoolboy that he does not grasp his thought 
until he can express it. The Son was the 
Word which God was uttering from the be- 
ginning, or rather from eternity. 

How close is the Son to God? How close 
is Christ to the Father? As close as a word 
to its utterer. How close am I to my words ? 
Physically, as close as I am to the air which 
I draw in and give forth in articulated sound. 
Mentally, as close as I am to my own thought. 
The Son was nearer to God than this. Some- 

93 



94 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

times I do not rmderstand my own thought. 
I use words beyond myself. The Father un- 
derstands the Word with perfect knowledge. 
Sometimes I may not he sincere and my 
words may be morally apart from myself. 
There is no such moral gap between Crod and 
the Word. Sometimes my words seem im- 
personal and dead. I wish I had the power 
to breathe upon them and make them live. 
God eternally breathes His life into the 
Word and the Word is the Son— God's Com- 
panion forever. 

The author is trying to make clear, first 
of all, the truth that this Word is a word 
about Christ. The life which tbe followers 
of Jesus had seen was not a life which had 
begun at Bethlehem. Only the earthly career 
had begun there. The life itself had been 
the Word which God had been speaking from 
eternity. In the life of Christ men had over- 
heard God speaking the Word which is in 
His mind forever. The life of Christ grew 
on the first followers as they meditated. 



THE WOED BECOME FLESH 95 

Mark sees the career which started when 
Jesus began His preaching jonmeys. Mat- 
thew puts the beginning back to David : the 
royal line has flowered out into consummate 
expression. Luke traces the beginning back 
to Adam : in Christ the whole race has found 
its crown. John sees the eternal in the life 
of Christ and hears the Word which is for- 
ever with God. 

In forever uttering the eternal Word God 
is revealing Himself. The Word was God, 
we are told. The Word was the complete 
utterance of God, spoken out of God's own 
heart. What was God saying to Himself in 
the long ages before man came? He was 
uttering the Word, which for us is Christ. 
In the Christ life we see the picture which 
filled the mind of God from eternity. In the 
Word we see the Companion whom God must 
have had as the object of His eternal gaze. 
Shall I say that I have no time to think 
about the Eternal Christ? God has been 
thinking about Him supremely forever. 



96 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

It was tlirougli tlie utterance of tlie Eter- 
nal "Word that the world was made. The 
world is merely the material setting for the 
inner meaning of the Word. If we do not 
see that the world is for the revelation of a 
word we are lost, as lost as a butterfly would 
be that might fly through an open window 
and alight upon a printing press. The butter- 
fly could make nothing of the printing press 
until it mastered the mystery of a word. If 
we do not see that the world is for the rev- 
elation of the Word we are lost. No other 
word is worth revealing. If God is not like 
Christ, and if the world is not made for the 
setting forth of the spiritual glories of the 
Christ, it is of no consequence what Grod is 
like, or what the world is made for. We can 
not understand in detail what all the parts 
of our strange world are for even after we 
know that they are for Christ; but if we 
know that they are for Christ, we can wait 
for the details. What, then, were the long 
ages of details for before men came? For 



THE WOED BECOME FLESH 97 

the Word, which is Christ. What are the 
vast mysteries of creation for? For Christ. 
What are pain and sorrow for? For Christ. 
One day we shall see all the parts of the 
universe contributing each its share to bring 
out into clear vision the rich suggestiveness 
of the Eternal Word. The word is a great 
instrument for speaking and painting and 
singing and sculpturing and bodying forth 
the wealths of meaning in the Word. Some 
of the brushes have not yet begun to paint, 
and some of the instruments are not yet at- 
tuned, but each will perform its appropriate 
work in its appointed time. The Christ life 
is the one word which justifies and explains 
the universe, Christ is the heart of the 
world ^s meaning. As we look upon the dark 
features of the physical system we may well 
despair until we consider the Word. We can 
never long think meanly of a world of which 
Christ is the explaining Word. The many 
races of the world, also, and their forlorn 
and backward condition, the hard lot of in- 
7 



98 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

dividuals— all this would be intolerable to 
our minds if we could not feel that Christ is 
the Word back of all. We do not yet under- 
stand the full meanings of the Word. When 
we do all things will fall into ordered system 
in our thought. 

The Word came into our life to throw 
light upon the meaning of life. The life was 
the light of men. If the Word had been 
merely a combination of vocal sounds, or of 
printed characters upon a page, it would 
have solved but few problems for us. The 
great difficulty of profound conceptions is 
to get them beyond the stage of being merely 
written or spoken and to body them out into 
life. When the idea can be lived most of its 
difficulties to the understanding disappear. 
Much of our trouble in theology comes from 
forgetting that the Word of God lived in the 
life of Jesus and from carrying the Word 
back from the life condition to the merely 
abstract, or spoken condition. If we looked 
to the life, and not merely to the mark on 



THE WOED BECOME FLESH 99 

the page, if we caught the spirit rather than 
the letter, we would see many puzzles solving 
themselves. If we are merely thinking of 
words on a page, and hence if the problpm 
is chiefly an intellectual problem to us, we 
can get into grievous enigmas in considering 
such a theme as the incarnation, for exam- 
ple. If we can come under the spell of the 
life we can see how natural and inevitable it 
was that the Son of God should come into 
human life. The Cross is a great stumbling- 
block apart from the Life. Once come into 
touch with the Life, and we see that the Life 
can not stop short of any self-sacrifice. Im- 
mortality is surrounded with dubious ques- 
tionings so long as the Word is only a book 
word ; but when the Word is seen as the Life, 
and the Life is once felt, the inevitableness 
of immortality is apparent. It is impossible 
that such fullness of life should be quenched 
by a merely physical event like death. 

The author becomes still more definite. 
The Word is not only life, but flesh. It has 



> 3 

5 1 ^ 



100 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

become visible to human eyes. It has moved 
out of the world of spirit and become a 
force in the realm of matter. Flesh means a. 
definite connection with the material uni- 
verse—a set of relations to be established 
with a system of things. The Word is not to 
touch human life in a vague or general way. 
The Word become flesh is to occupy so much 
of material space and is to move from one 
place to another. The word which originally 
spoke only to the ear of the spirit is now 
to become actually audible-is to speak with 
a voice which starts the actual air in mo- 
tion. Then comes the sadder thought that 
even so some will not hear. The sorrow of 
the cross breathes through this majestic 
passage. Flesh means not only the power to 
give impressions, but to receive them as well. 
The Word become flesh is not only capable 
of starting new forces into the life of the 
world, but of receiving new pains from the 

world. 

The word translated ''dwelt" means 






THE WOED BECOME FLESH loi 

''tabernacled" or "lived in a tent" among 
us. It will not do to force suggestions into 
words by stress upon tbeir etymological sig- 
nificance, but the suggestion of the tent is 
helpful in picturing the condescending love 
of the Eternal Son. The thought is of a Life 
which overflowed the entire universe, coming 
down to dwell in human conditions as in a 
tent. Compared to the appropriate dwelling- 
place of the Eternal Word the sum of human 
conditions is like a shifting fragile tent in 
the desert. The language of the skies which 
alone is adequate to express the Eternal 
Word is as much vaster than the poor, paltry 
human speech which Christ was forced to 
use as a palace is vaster than a tent. The 
human modes of thought, the human feelings, 
the human institutions of Christ's time seem 
fearfully poor dwelling places for the Eter- 
nal Wisdom. The greatness of the sacrifice 
of Christ appears in this thought of His 
coming into human life as into a tent; and 
the greatness of His glory appears in His 



102 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

sending out ligM throngli every crack and 
seam. Coming to His life, to keep to the 
figure here used, is like coming across a 
desert at midnight to find light streaming 
across the waste places from the hospitable 
lamps of a kindly tent. If we look upon the 
life into which Christ came from the stand- 
point of the higher privileges which would 
have been appropriate to Him, the conditions 
seem as plain and prosaic as a tent at mid- 
day. If we look upon the Life, radiant with 
the grace and truth, from the standpoint of 
our human needs, it is as beautiful as the 
lighted tent of a hospitable shepherd to a 
wayfarer lost at midnight. 



THE POVERTY OF CHRIST 



THE POVERTY OF CHRIST 

2 Corinthians viii, 9. 

C HEIST, who was rich, for our sakes be- 
came poor, Paul tells us. The text is an 
appeal for a collection, and is written with a 
practical motive. If Christ could do without 
worldly goods for the sake of us, we ought 
to be willing to give for the relief of the 
distress around us. This is the immediate 
message of the text. Farther down in the 
depths is a message for the theologians. For 
them the poverty of Christ has to do with 
profound speculations as to what qualities 
and attributes the Eternal Son of God laid 
aside in becoming man. 

Between the immediate meaning and the 
theological significance lies another message. 
Christ lived through all the essential phases 
of a true human experience, and in His life 

105 



mimimimKSBam 



106 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

felt more than once the pangs of an inner 
soul-impoverishnient. These experiences 
bring Him even nearer to ns than does the 
fact that He had not where to lay His head. 
We can spend this Christmas morning well 
in thinking of that poverty into which Christ 
came for our sakes. 

Think of the sense of impoverishment 
that must have come to Jesus in connection 
with His inevitable surrender of certain spir- 
itual delights. The secret of Jesus' lonely 
walks upon the mountains must have lain in 
His deep love for conversation with God- 
conversation, too, which could find no satis- 
fying substitute in walks and talks with the 
most intimate of His disciples. Christ was 
fitted in Himself for steady and serene gaze 
upon truths which men never reach. The 
Mount of Transfiguration gives us a glimpse 
of life which must have been perfectly nor- 
mal to Him. While Peter and James and 
John were stupefied with terror, the Master's 
delight shone in eye and face. All these joys 



THE POVEETT OF CHRIST 107 

of the mountain Christ gave up that through 
His poverty we might become rich. 

Imagine a great artist gazing out over 
majestic landscapes which he loves. For the 
mere spectator one glance at mountain and 
meadow and sky and sea is enough. Not so 
with the artist. His soul is never full. For 
him the scene has ever new shades of mean- 
ing. This artistic seer, however, feels the 
calls to artistic prophecy. He must teach 
inferior minds the beauty spread out before 
them. The peculiarities of each pupil must 
be noted, and cause and cures of dullness 
must be learned, the power to beget enthusi- 
asm must be acquired. The artist may give 
himself even to matter-of-fact drudgery with 
a sort of stolid delight, but there must come 
times when he misses the summer afternoons 
of quiet musing on the hillsides. Though 
Jesus made glorious even the dustiest details 
of His life with the light of a great divine 
significance. He can hardly have been really 
human if He never felt a sense of loss as 



108 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

He yearned for uninterrupted brooding over 
the vaster reaches of the Father's truth. 

Again, Jesus gave up at the start the 
thought of working through perfect instru- 
ments. The tools upon which Jesus was 
forced to rely must have brought to Him at 
times a feeling of wretched poverty. Take 
the instrument which we call human speech. 
Its imperfections as the medium of revelation 
appear constantly in crude misunderstand- 
ings and in perennial wranglings over in- 
terpretations. No doubt language seems a 
great instrument to us who have never 
learned to use it to its full powers, but how 
must it have seemed to a transcendent in- 
telligence like that of the Master? Quite 
likely strings stretched across a tortoise- 
shell were very satisfactory to the first mu- 
sicians, but how would such an instrument 
seem to a master of the modern violin! 
Moreover, while Jesus loved His own and 
loved them to the end, is it conceivable that 
there never came moments when Jesus longed 



THE POVERTY OF CHRIST 109 

for apter disciples and more supple-minded 
apostles ? These human instruments through 
whom His kingdom was to come — with what 
slowness they responded to His forgings and 
temperings ! "With what a sense of poverty 
the Leader must have looked at times upon 
His lieutenants! 

We get a glimpse, too, of the poverty of 
our Lord when we consider even the physical 
limitations under which He wrought. The 
longest day has but twenty-four hours, and 
a man in the flesh can not be in more than 
one place at one instant. "With the realization 
that activity, to be effective, must be limited 
in its sphere, there must come to all of us a 
sort of sense of cramping poverty. Other 
men just as worthy of help lie outside our 
farthest reach. There were many lepers in 
Judea and Galilee in the days of Jesus, but 
to none of them was Jesus sent, save only 
a few. Jesus must have caused almost as 
much sorrow as joy in His work as a Healer. 
When Peter came at Capernaum with the 



110 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

report, ''All men seek for Thee," Jesus re- 
sponded by starting for the next towns. In 
that pursuing crowd were many blind and 
lame and sick, whose bitterest disappointment 
to the day of death was the memory of the 
Mighty Healer fleeing to the next towns 
while they were almost within reach. The 
thought must have been even more agoniz- 
ing to Jesus Himself. 

Not only were there some things which 
Jesus gave up at the start as unattainable 
under the circumstances of His poverty, but 
there were also some things that He strove 
after and sometimes failed to get. These fail- 
ures must have increased His feeling of pov- 
erty. 

Jesus was a Preacher. Before the preacher 
himself can feel any satisfying sense of suc- 
cess he must experience the inspiration of 
cordial listenings on the part of his hearers. 
The preacher may have tarried for hours in 
contemplative study, the theme may seem to 
him most worthy, but if that peculiar quicken- 



THE POVERTY OF CHRIST 111 

ing something which comes from a receptive 
audience be lacking, the preacher feels poor 
indeed. True, the multitudes at times heard 
Jesus gladly. At times they enriched the 
.heart of the Great Preacher with the mag- 
netic and enkindling re-enforcement of their 
listening. But at other times they were dull, 
or indifferent, or hostile. A rough and 
sturdy son of thunder cast out of the syna- 
gogue at Nazareth might have sustained him- 
self with a robust contempt for hearers who 
could thus receive a great sermon. Jesus 
was sturdy, and He, too, could feel contempt, 
but as He saw the wild ruffianism which 
greeted His message of good news to the 
people of Nazareth, He must have felt that 
distressing poverty which comes to a prophet 
whose words lack nothing save a kindly audi- 
ence. 

Jesus could not always get confidence 
when He sought for it. Sometimes when He 
tried to heal the sick He could do but little 
because of their unbelief. It is the old story 



112 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

of the impoverishment of a leader through 
the lack of confidence in him. "What keeps 
business moving? Is it the amount of coin 
in circulation? Or is it the opening of new 
markets! These, of course, play their part, 
but the great creator of industrial prosperity 
is the confidence which men have in one an- 
other. The surest way to pull down the 
wealth of a great financier is to attack con- 
fidence in him. Now, just as a business man 
falls under the load of an awful poverty when 
the confidence of other men in him departs, 
so Jesus must have experienced a burden like 
the consciousness of inner poverty when He 
was unable to get that confident response to 
faith without which He could not bring spir- 
itual wealth to men. The saddest failures 
of all come when, through no fault of their 
own, rich men see the confidence upon which 
all depends fall away. It was a sad moment 
in the life of Jesus when, through the un- 
belief of the masses and of individuals, the 
rich treasures which He had for the redemp- 



THE POVEETY OF CHRIST 113 

tion of men became for the moment valueless 
in His hands. 

Of real appreciation Jesns received but 
little. He sought for adequate appreciation 
of the good things He brought to men, but 
even from the most intimate disciples He 
found but little. If all beside the owner of 
a diamond cared no more for diamonds than 
for pebbles, the diamond itself would not 
necessarily shrink in value in the regard of 
the owner, but the owner would surely feel 
poor without his neighbor's appreciation of 
his priceless stone. Just so a thinker longs 
for appreciation for the revelation which he 
brings, and without that appreciation he 
knows the pangs of an inner hunger more 
insistent than the tortures of starving flesh. 
The teaching of Jesus, loaded as it was with 
overwhelming significance, was not appreci- 
ated even by those who welcomed every word 
from the Master's lips. The parables, flash- 
ing back the light from their many angles, 
seem veritable spiritual jewels to us, but to 

8 



114 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

tlie disciples they were riddles, hard sayings, 
paradoxes. Nor did the direct statements 
fare better. When Jesns said, "I came 
forth from the Father, and am come into the 
world ; again I leave the world and go nnto 
the Father," the disciples responded with 
that too ready applause which sometimes is 
such unmistakable confession of a complete 
missing of the point, ''Lo, now speakest 
Thou plainly, and speakest no parable." 
With the sad realization that the disciples 
did not even faintly understand the deep 
truth which He had spoken, the Master con- 
tinued: "Do ye now believe! Behold, the 
hour Cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall 
be scattered, every man to his own, and shall 
leave Me alone. " 

There is a note of poverty, too, in Jesus' 
word, ''I have many things to say to you, 
but ye can not bear them now." It is part 
of the impoverishing humiliation of teaching 
that a teacher must say over and over again 
the merest elements when he longs to lead 



THE POVEETY OF CHEIST 115 

his pupils to richer and broader fields. A 
band of learners is somewhat like a fleet of 
war vessels in one particular. If they are to 
move together, the speed is set by the slowest 
vessel in the one case and by the slowest 
mind in the other. Minds and hearts were 
not strong enough during the stay of Jesus 
on earth to receive the truth which He would 
gladly have given. Jesus complained as He 
thought of the wealth of life in Himself and 
of the inability or unwillingness of men to 
receive that life. It was as if a fertile field, 
shut in by surrounding mountains, with no 
road out to the larger world, should feel poor 
because it must give itself to the limited 
crops which are all that the dwellers within 
the barriers can use. Jesus could bring forth 
with infinite abundance the things which 
men most need, but there was no road for 
these riches into the minds of men. Or, if 
I may say so, there was no market for the 
fine and luxuriant harvest of the mind of 
Jesus. 



116 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

It goes without saying that Jesus could 
get no large measure of personal sympathy 
in those moments when the burden was so 
great that He felt desperately alone. He 
found Peter and James and John asleep when 
all that He asked was that they keep awake. 
Men could not understand His sorrow. To 
the heavy-fibered it would be a great mystery 
to find a man weeping at the thought of a 
sorrow of thirty years ago. The grief of the 
heavy-fibered does not last through thirty 
years. Similarly, if Jesus had tried to ex- 
plain to His disciples the depth of His sor- 
row for the sins of the whole world, they 
would have been of all men the most mysti- 
fied. 

We realize something more of the poverty 
of Christ when we think of some of His losses. 
He lost, necessarily lost, that force of public 
opinion which for an instant in the opening 
of His career showed itself in His favor. He 
felt for a moment the plunge of the Niagara 
power within His grasp, and then He delib- 



\ 



THE POVEETY OF CHEIST 117 

erately allowed it to fall away. He lost 
disciples, too, who through days and weeks 
had walked with Him, disciples who had been 
at least measurably effective in preaching and 
in healing and in casting out devils. There 
came a time when some of them turned back 
and walked no more with Him. Superficial 
they no doubt were, but they left a heavy- 
hearted Christ when they turned away. 
Many went professing grievous disappoint- 
ment, but they carried away not so much 
grief as they left behind. And, direst loss of 
all, Jesus lost one of the twelve. He who 
made himself the son of perdition might have 
been one of the sons of light. None were 
lost "save one," but that one was lost. In 
His solicitude for that one, Jesus shows a 
depth of poverty-stricken woe which reaches 
to the very heart of God. God's universe is 
poorer with Judas out of his place. 

Finally, we get one further hint as to the 
poverty of Jesus by thinking of some im- 
poverishing knowledge which He was forced 



118 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

to possess. There is some land on this globe 
so poor that the more one has of it the poorer 
one is. There is also some knowledge that 
likewise makes the knower poorer. The more 
we read some books the poorer we are. The 
books may be true, but the facts may be of 
the impoverishing kind. The missionary to 
a foreign land must learn the heathen concep- 
tion of God; he must, for the time of learn- 
ing at any rate, think of dragons and vipers. 
This is a part of the secret of redemption, 
the striving to get near enough to the 
heathen's conception to lift it to something 
higher. So Jesus had to look upon the mis- 
erable and wretched conceptions which pre- 
vailed in His day; He endured the humilia- 
tion of considering all maimer of mistake and 
aberration and artificiality. Worse than all 
this, He was forced to come in close contact 
with the evil in men. He knew what was in 
man, for He saw it there. The redeemer of 
a tropical swamp must go down into the midst 
of the deadly vapors, and come close to the 



THE POVEETY OP CHEIST 119 

poison of weed and fang. The Eedeemer of 
the bodies of men must not draw back from 
the unsightly and grewsome. The Eedeemer 
of the souls of men did not shrink from the 
touch of sinners. One realm of awful knowl- 
edge God spares us from, namely, the world's 
iniquity as in its dreadful total He has seen 
it from the beginning. From the sight of 
humanity's sin as it lies before His eyes He 
mercifully delivers us. And He never sanc- 
tions our seeing the sin as it exists around us, 
save as our seeing will help banish the evil. 
God is not a realist in the sense that He is 
willing for His children to acquire any and 
all kinds of knowledge, if only the knowledge 
be "true to life." Some knowledge which is 
true to life leads to death. The agony of 
Jesus in Gethsemane was in part the shrink- 
ing of a sinless soul, already sickened by the 
world's manifestations of evil, from the 
further evil yet to appear. Sin was so awful 
to Jesus that vivid realizations of its pres- 
ence seemed for the moment to separate Him 



120 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

from God. Hence the impoverislied cry of 
Calvary, "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" 

After all, then, the Savior's poverty had 
to do with a manifold sense of impoverish- 
ment of a deeper kind than inconvenience and 
even suffering through the lack of material 
goods. He was willing to submit Himself to 
this inner and deeper poverty that we 
through His poverty might become rich. 
And if we have moments when we must give 
up, or can not get, or must lose certain pre- 
cious possessions of an inner and deeply vital 
value, it ought to help us to remember that 
even here Christ is our Leader. He has gone 
down into the valley of even these shadows. 



t 



THE IMMORTAL GIFT 



THE IMMORTAL GIFT 

Matthew xxvi, 18 

WhEEEVER the gospel is preached the 
breaking of the flask of ointment shall be 
told, said Jesus. There can be no doubt about 
the fulfillment of the prophecy. Here we 
are in a land which was nineteen hundred 
years ago a dreary wilderness, in a continent 
then undreamed of, reading the story of the 
woman's offering. The breaking of the box 
of ointment is worthy of being told to the 
last of earth's inhabitants, for it tells in acted 
parable the whole gospel, and immortalizes 
the kind of gift which gives the charm to 
Christmas. 

The incident is worthy of perpetual re- 
membrance as symbolizing the pressure of 
divine love for outward manifestation. It 
seemed to the disciples wildly foolish that 

123 



124 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

the woman should make such an extravagant 
offering to Jesus. They did not understand 
the inevitahleness with which love seeks a 
vent. We have in the incident a clue to the 
understanding of the love of God in the gift 
of His Son. Understand the throbbing love 
that could not be pent up without explosion ! 
The love would either break out into expres- 
sion or the heart itself would break. So the 
love burst out into extravagant expression 
through the shattered box and the escaping 
ointment. Understand the love of God for 
His children, and the most costly gift which 
He can make— even the gift of His only be- 
gotten Son— becomes inevitable. We talk 
about the difficulties in the way of the In- 
carnation, and miss the point through not 
seeing this insistent irrepressibleness of love. 
A hard-headed thinker will tell us that the 
Incarnation is as impossible as water run- 
ning up hill, but his reasoning goes down be- 
fore the attractive spell of a love which plays 
upon the Father's heart like the force of the 



THE IMMORTAL GIFT 125 

moon upon the sea, and in spite of the philos- 
opher's objections, fills human life with the 
inrnshing God. 

Again, the Master saw in this act a sugges- 
tion of the leap toward poverty which so ex- 
pressed His own life. All the slow hoardings 
of the years gone at a stroke ! For this the 
woman had labored ; for this the caravan had 
toiled across the desert; for this the artifi- 
cer in India had wrought— that the precious 
ointment might be wasted at one stroke ! Yes, 
all this is true, and this is the glory of the 
story. If the gospel means anything, it means 
that for our sakes Christ became poor. He 
descended into the deep sadness of our lot; 
He looked out upon life through our experi- 
ences; He put Himself sympathetically into 
all our sufferings. Men can not thus impov- 
erish themselves. They can not really put 
themselves into each other's places. We are 
all more or less like that social experimenter 
of a few years ago who for many months 
turned aside from the luxury of his own home 



126 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

to live among the lowly; earning his bread 
as they did, sharing the privations for the 
sake of understanding them. After the ex- 
periment, the student confessed that he had 
been only measurably successful, that even in 
the closest contact he could not sympathize 
as he wished with those whose lot he was 
trying to learn. He could not forget that he 
could leave them at any time. Christ, on the 
other hand, threw Himself so completely into 
human life that He made men's sufferings 
His own with a certainty and completeness 
which are the marvel of the ages. He could 
leap into the poverty of our condition, ex- 
hausting Himself in the pouring forth of the 
life which makes us rich. 

There is rich meaning, too, in the thought 
of a perfume going forth into the air as a 
symbol of the gospel of Christ. We are so 
taken up with the common aspects of the 
work of Christ that we do not always see 
its more precious and finer characteristics. 
The gospel is a box of ointment of great 



THE IMMOETAL GIFT 127 

price, the odor of which goes forth upon the 
air of a hard world. The fragrance may have 
a sort of evanescence — it may be only at rare 
moments in the life of the nation or of the 
individual that the fine perfume is detected, 
but these fugitive moments are treasures 
above all others. The man of dull sensitive- 
ness knows nothing about these rarer inci- 
dents of the godly life. They are not for 
him, or, rather, he is not for them. The 
fragrance is around him, but he knows not 
of its existence. For him whose sense of 
religious values and significance is at all 
keen, however, the odor of the precious oint- 
ment intoxicates and thrills the mind with 
its stimulating revelation of eternal glories. 
In the closing lines of ''Snowbound,'' Whit- 
tier speaks of the thanks that are to him 
like 

Odors blown, 
From unseen meadows newly mown." 

To one, the fragrance from the newly mown 
meadow means only hay. To another, the 



128 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

odor itself brings to tlie gaze the Tinseen field, 
and perhaps carries the thought back to 
memories of other days. Just as the fra- 
grance that comes through an open car-win- 
dow will annihilate the years and carry the 
soul back to the early happiness, so the odor 
of the ointment from the broken box, and the 
finer spiritual fragrance which it suggested 
and typified, carried the mind of Jesus to 
the Father and to that love which is the very 
foundation of His kingdom. For the instant, 
the glories of an existence before the worlds 
were may have burst upon His view. Shut 
in upon earth's dusty roadway, He neverthe- 
less caught gleams of the summer fields of 
glory just beyond the fringes of His human 
life. And so to us also the escaping fra- 
grance of an exalted act of self-sacrifice- 
foolish and even absurd as it may seem to 
the standpoint of low common sense, transi- 
tory and evanescent as it may be— brings the 
real revelations of the eternal glory. The 
memory of such joys is of more value to us 



THE IMMORTAL GIFT 129 

than many books of argument, of many days 
of merely routine good works. It is when 
we get to the conception of the high fine- 
ness of self-sacrifice for its own sake that 
we are prepared to understand the Master's 
commendation of this apparently impractical 
and reckless pouring forth of the costly oint- 
ment. The ointment was not in one sense 
a necessity to the nourishment of the mind 
of Jesus, but it transported Him into realms 
of the highest joy. 

The incident shows also the immense 
though unconscious wisdom of love. It is 
clear from the comment of Jesus that the 
woman did just the appropriate thing. She 
was not conscious of the wisdom of the deed, 
but she did wisely in trusting her love. ' ' She 
hath come beforehand to anoint My body for 
burial, '' said Jesus. This does not mean that 
she had a purpose consciously in mind. She 
simply gave herself up to the expression of 
her feeling for the Master, and the event 
proved that she could not have acted more 
9 



130 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

wisely if she had planned to do something 
altogether fitting to the particular circum- 
stance in the life of Jesus. And Jesus gave 
her the credit of the result. He spoke as 
if she had clearly foreseen the death and had 
come to prepare the hody for the approach 
of its awful experience. She trusted to what 
we might call a blind impulse, and got the 
credit for a clear purpose. Just as we look 
upon the work of the founders of our Ee- 
public and give them credit for results which 
they could not have possibly foreseen, so 
Jesus looked upon the deed of the woman 
and rewarded her. Just as it was wise for 
the founders of the nation to cast themselves 
out upon the current of an instinct toward 
freedom, just as it was wise for this woman 
to trust her impulse toward the costly mani- 
festation of feeling, so it is wise for us to 
rely upon the feelings that sometimes prompt 
us away from what we are ordinarily accus- 
tomed to look upon as sensible and practical. 
The principle that economy is a great waste 



THE IMMORTAL GIFT 131 

is especially true when it applies to the ex- 
pression of affection. 

The Master put the expression of interest 
and love for Himself above the giving of alms. 
This is a great surprise to the practical man. 
And yet the lesson is of eternal value. 
There are even to-day some who are more 
truly the representatives of Christ to us than 
are the poor. It is glorious to be a supporter 
of philanthropies, but this is not so glorious 
as to show love for the life-companion or the 
children or the intimate friend. The poor 
we shall have always, but these we shall have 
not always. The man who has visited the 
sick and given water and bread to the hungry 
need not think that he has thereby honored 
Christ if he has let year by year go by with- 
out the manifestation of interest and love for 
those who stand intimately before him as the 
nearest representatives of Christ. It is just 
as wise from the higher standpoint to allow 
an extravagant outburst of feeling for these 
as to give to the poor. 



132 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

It may be that we have not thougM of 
Christ as especially dependent upon appre- 
ciation. We have failed to see that the higher 
up men go toward God the more dependent 
they are upon the appreciation of their fel- 
lows. This does not mean that they are of 
the class of those sensitive souls who can 
not work if the spirit of their friends is not 
altogether cordial to them, but it does mean 
that the highest characters are those who ap- 
preciate most the gift of human sympathy 
and affection. The strongest men are not 
those who go forth to work not caring what 
men think, but those who go forth caring 
what men think. There was nothing which 
this woman could give Jesus in a material 
form which would have been in itself of di- 
rect benefit to Him. He was not in need of 
riches. If she had handed over the three hun- 
dred pence ''in cash," as we say, He would 
hardly have known what to do with it ex- 
cept to give it to the poor. There was noth- 
ing which she could communicate to Him m 



THE IMMORTAL GIFT 133 

the way of wisdom which would be of great 
help to Him. He needed that none should 
tell Him either how to preach the deep things 
of eternal life or proclaim the lowlier duties 
of the common task. There was nothing 
which the woman could give Jesus which 
would have large value apart from the spirit 
which the gift might manifest. The manifes- 
tation of the spirit, however, was worth a 
good deal more than the three hundred pence 
which the ointment cost. Finer and more 
pervasive than the fleeting odor which filled 
the room was the profound satisfaction which 
stole into the very heart of Jesus. Appreci- 
ation was all that men could give Jesus, but 
that appreciation was everything. Appre- 
ciation is all that men can give God, but that 
appreciation is everything to God. It must 
be so if we take at all seriously the teach- 
ing that we are the sons of God. God is 
in a sense dependent upon the appreciation 
of His children, just as an earthly father is 
dependent. This does not mean that the 



134 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

work of the universe can not go on if we 
do not show our appreciation, nor does it 
mean that God will be any wiser by the gift 
which we bring Him. It means that since 
the very center of God's life is feeling, that 
life will be richer if we make heart-return 
to Him. The higher up men go toward God 
the fuller becomes the life of feeling, the 
stronger the ties which set in sympathetic 
love toward humanity, and the realer the de- 
pendence of the heart upon the return of 
love from men. 

It was with the thought of His approach- 
ing death before Him that Jesus accepted the 
offering. The offering must have made the 
bearing of the cross easier. "We think of 
Jesus as really shrinking from the awful 
sorrow of Gethsemane and Calvary. The dis- 
tress was a real distress and the shadow of 
the woe was upon Jesus as He sat in the 
house at Bethany. The galling thought in 
cross-bearing is very often the suspicion that 
nobody cares. One word of appreciation will 



THE IMMOETAL GIFT 135 

carry the cross-bearer through Gethsemane 
when the lack of that word may mean the 
throwing aside of the cross. In the agony 
at Gethsemane Jesns earnestly desired that 
the disciples watch and pray with Him for 
one little honr, but they slept instead of pray- 
ing. Was Jesus, then, utterly bereft of hu- 
man sympathy as He wrestled in the mys- 
terious suffering? We do not see how He 
could have carried the load if He had been 
thus alone. No ; the memory must have gone 
back to the moment at Bethany when the 
woman broke the box of ointment She little 
thought what she was doing when she shat- 
tered the flask, but she was letting loose 
mightier forces than ever conjurer was fabled 
to have loosened from his magic box. What 
power there was in the perishing fragrance 
of the flask ! Power enough to re-enforce the 
soul of the Master and carry Him through 
Gethsemane! Power enough to carry Him 
through the shock of Calvary ! This is often 
the sting of sacrificial death— that nobody 



136 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

cares! Nobody seems to care for the pro- 
test against sin, or for tlie contact with 
deadly evil, or for the pouring forth of love! 
The sustaining reflection with Jesus was that 
somebody on earth did care and appreciate. 
The cross stands ever at the center of the 
universe. The cross-bearers aire still filling 
up that which is lacking in the suffering of 
Christ and of God. Happy are they who go 
to the sorrow sustained by the fragrance of 
the flask of ointment. These faint odor- 
waves would not have been thought strong 
from the standpoint of the world's practical 
idea of force, but they were powerful enough 
to lift the soul of Jesus above the submerging 
flood of sorrow and buoy His heart on to the 
victory. At the hour of supreme crisis just 
one pulsating wave of love may outweigh the 
.massive forces which sway the suns. 



THE GIFTS THAT NEVER COME 



THE GIFTS THAT NEVER COME 

Hebrews xi; Luke xi, 2-13 

As we meet at our Christmas festivities this 
week, we should not forget one class of per- 
sons of whom we are not apt often to think 
— those to whom Christmas brings the 
thought of gifts that never have come to 
them. As children, it may be, they did not 
receive the tokens of kindness that other 
children received. As youths they dreamed 
fine dreams which have not come true. They 
have seen one illusion after another break 
up and disappear. The Christmas season, 
with its idealism and romance, comes to them 
to mock them. It brings pain through re- 
calling to them the good gifts of personal 
kindliness and of fulfilled dreams which they 
have never received. A melancholy which 
those who have never known shattered 

189 



140 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

dreams can not understand comes npon tliem 
as they sit at tlie fireside on Christmas eve. 

There are two passages of Scripture 
which onght to be full of comfort to all such 
disappointed hearts, provided, of course, they 
have still kept at least the elements of their 
faith in God. The first passage is the elev- 
enth chapter of the Book of Hebrews. The 
second is that passage in the eleventh chapter 
of Luke where Christ tells of the Father's 
wisdom in giving good gifts to His children. 

It wonld be altogether impossible to dis- 
cuss the forty verses of this chapter of He- 
brews within onr limits, but one verse stands 
out before the others as containing the heart 
of the entire passage ; around that verse all 
others turn. We refer to the thirteenth verse, 
''These all died in faith, not having received 
the promises/' From the opening sentence 
of the chapter as to faith being the substance 
of things hoped for and the evidence of 
things not seen, down to the last sentence, 
the thought is of a faith which held fast in 



GIFTS THAT NEVER COME 141 

repeated disappointments and came to find 
in the very faith itself the reward beyond 
the fulfillment of the earlier dreams. The 
patriarchs had started out from their homes 
to find a city with foundations. They did 
not travel into the desert because they liked 
the desert. They did not dwell in tents be- 
cause they were fond of outdoor life. They 
were seeking a city, and a city which would 
endure — one that had foundations, whose 
Builder and Maker was God. They were for- 
ever on the move. Jacob raised himself on 
his staff to give his final blessing, and Joseph, 
when he was dying, made mention of the 
departing of the children of Israel and gave 
commandment concerning his bones. There 
is no attempt in this passage to disguise the 
hardships of the life of faith or to hint that 
the lot of the Christian is likely to be easy. 
There is something splendid in the appeal 
of Christianity to the hardier moral elements 
in human nature. None of the apostles held 
out promises of material reward or physical 



142 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

ease in the life of tlie Christian. Jesus Him- 
self did not do this. There is no record of 
His trying to attract men by the prospect 
of easy conquests; in fact, He many times 
discouraged men at the very beginning. A 
rich man came running to the Master to seek 
eternal life, and the Master imposed a con- 
dition which sent him away. To another He 
said that the Son of man had not where to 
lay His head; to another He declared that 
one who would go back to bury his own father 
could not expect to be His disciple. And 
the keynote of this great passage in Hebrews 
is that the heroes died in the faith, not hav- 
ing obtained the promises. The not is put 
there in full sight. At first we may feel that 
the not is a mistake. This is a strange argu- 
ment for the life of faith— that those who had 
struggled for long years for the reward did 
not receive it. The writer goes on, however, 
to make himself clear : the heroes did not re- 
ceive what they were looking for, but they 
found something better. In the midst of their 



GIFTS THAT NEVER COME 143 

struggle they came to see that the very faith 
itself was the main reward, and that the faith 
kept pointing out beyond any possible earthly 
realization. The actual city, even if it had 
foundations, could never be enough. They 
came to see that a heavenly country was the 
only one that could fully satisfy the expecta- 
tions that had grown through the years. 
Their disappointment did not sour nor em- 
bitter them; their souls were not worn out 
by seeing dream after dream fail of fulfill- 
ment; their heroic purpose so deepened and 
increased that in the end God Himself was 
not ashamed to be called their God. 

Where is there another religious system 
which would dare tell of the hardships which 
may at any moment confront men as does 
Christianity ? Where is there a system which 
dares tell men that every dream which they 
may dream of earthly success may at any 
moment come to naught if they follow the 
truth? To be sure, we all know that if men 
follow the teachings of Christ, they are in 



144 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

the path of industrial and social advance- 
ment, but very often the dreams of such bless- 
ings do not come true in particular cases. 
The house may burn down, or the son die, 
or the dreadful illness come on the very day 
after the man has given himself to the cause 
of the Lord. The man may dream the larg- 
est dreams of earthly prosperity, with every 
dollar of the money to be devoted to the cause 
of Christ, and he may know defeat from the 
very moment he starts to realize his dream. 
Christianity dares to say this. It dares tell 
men that they must take up a cross, and it 
dares tell them that the cross will be put upon 
them even if they do not wish it. But it 
tells something more: it tells them that if 
they do not get an earthly city, they will 
get a heavenly. It tells them that they may 
even enter into the heavenly city here and 
now and find in spiritual conviction itself a 
peace that passeth understanding and a joy 
that the world can not take away. This is 
the whole of the Christian promise— i/ yon 



GIFTS THAT NEVEE COME 145 

do not get what you are honestly seeking 
after y you will get something better. If you 
die in faith, having received the promises, 
well and good. If you die in faith, not hav- 
ing received the promises, better still, for 
this marks you off as the true hero. God is 
not ashamed to be your God. The day will 
come when you will be thankful for the in- 
fluence upon you of the things you never re- 
ceived, though you sought earnestly for them. 

The passage before us is one of the great 
classic utterances of all literature. To get 
its full force, however, we should try to see 
something of its eternal character — some- 
thing of the way in which the experience of 
these heroes is forever repeating itself in the 
lives of those we most admire. 

Here is a man who has an honest desire 
to accumulate wealth which is to be used in 
an honest way. He seeks for the money 
through the years. He plans night and day, 
always with the thought of the noble out- 
come in mind. Just as he is about to grasp 

10 



146 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

the prize, some calamity, natural disaster, or 
industrial panic comes upon him and scatters 
his forces. Has the man failed? If he keeps 
his faith, no. The prudence, the foresight, 
the self-control, the faith— these are his. 
Virtues like these count anywhere. They are 
the real gold of the kingdom. Faith which 
can hold on in spite of disappointment— the 
believer at last dying with his hopes un- 
dimmed— this faith is good coin in any realm 
in God's universe. 

Here is a man busy with great problems 
that he feels he must solve for the good of 
men, a Christian thinker with the studies that 
may relieve the doubts of men. He works 
through the years and, it may be, dies with- 
out having found the light which he sought. 
Quite likely this will be the outcome, for 
some problems have been clamoring for solu- 
tion ever since the days of the Greeks. It 
would be false to say that we are no nearer 
a solution now than then, for there has been 
advance, and great advance. But humanity 



GIFTS THAT NEVER COME 147 

has not yet reached an answer to its ques- 
tions. Shall we say, then, that the straggle 
has been in vain? Hardly. The training of 
mind and heart has not been in vain. The 
thinker himself is the best outcome of the 
thinking, jnst as Abraham was the best re- 
sult of Abraham ^s faith. Those early think- 
ers who sought to turn lead into gold, or 
sought to read the stars to find their mean- 
ing for the individual life, were not all im- 
postors. They sought, many of them, with 
an earnest purpose, and while they did not 
get what they sought, they put the world on 
the path to scientific research and showed 
by their own example the kind of persistency 
with which thinkers should search. 

Suppose we step, now, into a higher realm 
and think of the direct search for God in 
prayer, which to some seems to end in dis- 
appointment. The saint prays many times 
and finds his prayer unanswered. He desires 
this or that in the way of direct answer and 
seems to come to naught. Is there, therefore. 



148 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

no answer? Is not the patience which does 
not weary an answer? Is the faith which 
does not shrink an answer? How better can 
a man find favor with God than by refusing 
to be discouraged with God? Surely this 
must be a man of whom God can not be 
ashamed. This is the very glory of the heroes 
of Israel, that they believed in God when all 
appearances were against God ; that is to say, 
when it seemed as if God had forsaken them. 
The friends whom we most value in this world 
are the ones who stick, even when we have 
to embark on courses which the friends can 
not understand. 

We have now to touch upon the hardest 
problem of all. How is it when we fail to 
bring the city into the lives of others? The 
mother sees glories in the life of the son 
which she thinks can be brought out by her 
prayers, and she prays. The glories may not 
come, or, at least, sometimes do not come. 
Is the prayer vain? We do not pretend to 
say how joy shall one day be brought to 



GIFTS THAT NEVEE COME 149 

that mother's heart, but we are sure that 
if her faith fails not, she becomes a center of 
inspiration to scores of whom she may know 
nothing. The faith that can hold on in the 
face of disappointment like this — ^what glory 
it sheds upon those who stand by! The 
writer of these lines once knew a woman 
who nursed an invalid sister through forty 
years, waiting day after day for some ray 
of intelligence to break, receiving in response 
only the chatterings of an empty mind. The 
end finally came, and the sister saw the last 
hope vanish. Was the hope vain? Not from 
the standpoint of those who stood by and 
caught something of the glory of the heroic 
endeavor and who s^w^his forlorn hope led 
through the years. So with all our prayers. 
' If the house be not worthy, the peace re- 
turns to him who sent it forth, and from him 
it sheds abroad its rays to all around. How 
the Almighty is to adjust all claims in the 
final day we do not know, but we do see 
something of the glory which comes into 



TT 



160 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

Iraman life through, the discipline of a quest 
that ends in ontward failure and inner vic- 
tory. 

** 'T is not the grapes of Canaan that repay, 
But the high faith that fails not by the way." 

Turning now to the passage in Luke xi, 
13, we find this same general thought ex- 
pressed by Jesus, even more irresistibly than 
by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
Christ's thought is that the Father knows 
how to give; whether we know how to ask 
or not. He knows how to give. This truth 
is to guide us in all our reflection upon God's 
gifts. If earthly fathers know how to give, 
says Jesus, much more does the Heavenly 
Father know how to give. Sometimes God's 
very wisdom and skill in giving prevent our 
seeing His gifts. It may be that God gives 
quietly, and the very quietness of the com- 
ing of the gift keeps us from seeing it. God 
does not give standing on the corners of the 
streets, nor does He sound a trumpet before 
Himself as He gives. He gives unobtru- 



GIFTS THAT NEVEE COME 151 

sively. God does not give as the profes- 
sional philanthropist gives. He is not a 
philanthropist, but a Father. Modern char- 
ity, with its elaborate institntionalism, throws 
bnt little light on God^s giving. We are not 
^^ cases'^ in God's sight, carefully numbered 
and recorded in a card-catalogue, our re- 
quests to be passed upon by a committee. 
We are children, and the gifts are the per- 
sonal signs of a Father's love. Philanthropy, 
impersonal and institutional as much of it is, 
does not give us the how of God's giving. 
Again, the very greatness of God's way will 
obscure the fact of His gift if we do not look 
upon His dealings from the loftiest stand- 
point. He may grant a boon to America by 
changing conditions in China — He delights to 
act in this large way. Still further, His pro- 
found understanding of our needs must be 
thought of. He knows what is best, and is 
divinely skillful in bringing about that best. 
If a son should ask a father for a toy which 
the son could make himself, the father might 



TT "=5Hcr — •-, ■ - x^JLl^ <l ' • •— ^ < ■ !■ ' . V 



152 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

wisely respond by placing the appropriate 
tool in the boy's hand. God likewise some- 
times answers our aspirations and dreams by 
sending ns tools instead of finished products. 
The one gift above all which the Father 
desires to give is His Holy Spirit. Now, 
it is absolutely inconceivable that Grod could 
withhold His Holy Spirit from one who had 
asked for that Spirit, just as it would be 
impossible to give the Spirit to one who cared 
nothing for the things of the Spirit. No 
matter what else we ask for, we can not have 
it unless we take also the Spirit of God. 
This is the accompaniment of all God's gifts. 
If the gift can not be given without the 
Spirit, the giving of the gift is impossible. 
If the gift is in harmony with the Spirit, 
the gift will come. If the gift is not in har- 
mony with the Spirit of God, but the heart 
of the worshiper is in such harmony, the 
Spirit can come in increased abundance. In 
this case the Father refuses the petition, but 
sends a better gift. Suppose a son should 



GIFTS THAT NEVER COME 153 

ask a stone of a loving father, or a scorpion, 
or a serpent? Could the father give it? If 
the son should ask a stone, the father would 
give bread. If he should ask a serpent, the 
father would give a fish. If he should ask 
a scorpion, the father would give an egg. 
This is not an artificial twisting of the Scrip- 
tures for the making of a far-fetched point. 
It is a fair statement of the way that God 
deals with us. Many of our desires are so 
ignorant and foolish that they are like peti- 
tions for stones, serpents, and scorpions. 
God sends bread, fish, and eggs instead. 
When we make a poor request through ig- 
norance. He sends His Spirit. If we do not 
get what we ask for, we get something better. 
This would seem to be the legitimate sum- 
mary of the Master's teaching about good 
gifts. Of course, we must remember that the 
same reliance upon God which we are to ex- 
ercise in all phases of life, the steady faith 
in Him, even when we can not see Him, is 
to be exercised here. Even in answer to our 



Tl — '■■ — ^*-~-i..^ . -.\i , — ■4 'Vw, 



154 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

petition for the coming of the Spirit it may 
be that the Spirit will not come as we have 
expected. There may not be the sudden 
bursting light for which we have longed, or 
the revelation may be otherwise far different 
from what we have looked for. Still it is 
impossible for God not to give us the best 
of all His gifts if we ask for it, and the 
patience which prompts us to renew the peti- 
tion in the face of seeming silence is, as we 
suggested above, not a merely reflex influ- 
ence, but the direct gift of God's Spirit — as 
great and glorious a gift as any which we 
can receive and the sure token that the Spirit 
has already come. 



mmm 



THE KINGDOM THAT COMETH 
WITHOUT OBSERVATION 



THE KINGDOM THAT COMETH 
WITHOUT OBSERVATION 

'^The Mngdom of God cometh not with obser- 
vation/^ — Luke xvii, 20 

It is easy enough to see the mistake of the 
Pharisees in the question to which the text 
of the morning is an answer. Jesus' use of 
the words ^^king'' and ^'kingdom'' was new. 
The words inevitably suggested to His hear- 
ers an actual material realm of some kind 
— a realm that could be located geograph- 
ically. This thought that the kingdom of 
God ought to be ^^here'' or ^' there'' if it 
existed at all, was altogether natural. Jesus 
was from the beginning trying to put into 
the ordinary speech of His day a spiritual 
suggestiveness that came hard to His audi- 
ences. If Peter and James and John almost 
at the very last of the Master's earthly career 

157 



^ 

-^ 



158 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

were in doubt because of the spiritual use 
of the words that they had always handled 
in a strictly matter-of-fact way, we certainly 
should be able to see at once how Pharisees 
and scribes could fail to understand this word 
as to the kingdom. 

We have passed far away from the mis- 
understanding of the Pharisees— and of the 
disciples, too — for that matter. We see 
clearly just what Jesus meant. The king- 
dom of God cometh not with observation, 
for the sufficient reason that it is a spiritual 
kingdom. The things of the Spirit are not 
reached by eyesight. It does no good to 
try to locate the kingdom of God by the use 
of a map. We can not see souls. We can 
not see loves and aspirations and prayers 
and joys. These are in the invisible realm 
— and this we have come to understand. 

But it is quite possible that there is a 
sense in which the kingdom is even more in- 
visible than we have been accustomed to 
think. It may be that its coming is even more 



THE KINGDOM THAT COMETH 159 

intangible and invisible than the most truly 
spiritual among ns imagine. The conception 
that the kingdom of the soul is the realm 
of the invisible realities is rather an ele- 
mentary truth. Very possibly Jesus saw 
something still more in need of rebuke than 
gross crudeness like that of the mere begin- 
ners in Christian discipleship. It would seem 
that something further must have been be- 
fore His thought as He spoke the words of 
the text. "We so often think that the progress 
of a cause depends on our realization of the 
progress, we are so constantly given over to 
watching painfully and minutely all the signs 
of life in any movement to which we give 
ourselves, tibat it may be well that the Mas- 
ter enforced repeatedly the real inward per- 
vasiveness and invisibleness of the kingdom. 
It may be, I repeat, that He was thinking, 
not of the mere elementary truth as to the 
invisibility of a soul-kingdom, but of some 
other truths also that must be kept in mind, 
even by the most advanced disciples ; and on 



160 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

this Christmas day it is well that we look 
beneath the mere snrface signs of the com- 
ing of the kingdom. 

The kingdom of God cometh not with ob- 
servation. It may be that it makes very real 
advance without onr being at all conscious of 
the progress. First of all, look at the dawn- 
ing of religions consciousness in the child- 
I life. On Christmas day at least we shall all 
readily admit that it is the will of God that 
there should never be sin, that from the very 
beginning the life of the growing child should 
unfold to an understanding of the will of 
God. Suppose, now, that this ideal should be 
more abundantly realized than we actually 
find it, what should we have? We should 
have the kingdom of God coming in genera- 
tion after generation without great outward 
sign. That is to say, we should not be able 
to see the coming. The gradual unfolding 
in consciousness would be indeed so gradual, 
the response to religious instruction so subtle, 
the outward sign might be so completely 



THE KINGDOM THAT COMETH 161 

lacking, that we might put no date upon the 
time of its arrival. To take the illustration 
that comes to mind most naturally, — ^we be- 
lieve that Jesus lived a perfectly true human 
childhood. "We do not think of Him as tod- 
dling about the streets of Nazareth burdened 
with the consciousness of the fact that He 
was the Son of God come into the world for 
the redemption of men. He probably began 
conscious life just about as other children 
do,— with His mind busy with the world of 
sights and sounds about Him. He gradually 
awoke to a knowledge of Himself and of the 
work that He was called upon to do. Just 
when did Jesus awake to the fact that He 
was the Son of God? This was the most stu- 
pendous realization that ever dawned upon a 
human mind. When did this most stupend- 
ous fact dawn? There is absolutely no tell- 
ing. We have theories, to be sure, but the 
theories can not settle the matter. When did 
Jesus first say to Himself, ^^I am the Son 
of God?'' Was it one day as He played with 
11 



162 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

His Jewish companions on the Nazareth 
streets, or one afternoon as He returned 
from a boyhood stroll over the hills, or one 
evening as He knelt at the knee of His 
mother, or was it when He took that mem- 
orable trip to Jerusalem? Yon may have 
your guess about this matter, and I may have 
mine, but the simple fact remains that the 
greatest realization that ever has broken 
upon a human consciousness broke so gradu- 
ally, or so quietly, that to this day we have 
nothing but theories as to the time of its 
arrival. 

Now, in a world where the ideal could be 
completely realized this experience would be 
the ordinary one. The kingdom of God,— in 
the sense of a realization of the presence and 
purpose of God, and in the sense, too, of self- 
conscious surrender to Him,— would come 
for the most part so quietly that on-lookers 
might be unaware of the first approaches of 
the kingdom in the normal childhood experi- 
ence. 



THE KINGDOM THAT COMETH 163 

You may raise the question as to any 
practical value to be gained from the em- 
phasis upon such a truth as this. Well, on 
Christmas Day it is surely permissible to 
dwell long and lovingly upon the thought of 
God's relation to the child. And anything is 
of value that helps us understand the work- 
ings of God. Anything is of value that shows 
something of the all-embracingness of an ac- 
tivity of which we are unconscious. If any- 
thing can prompt to worshipful feelings, 
surely this recognition of the silent coming 
of the Spirit of God Himself upon generation 
after generation ought to make us bow down 
with reverent admiration. 

The real miracles in this world are these 
soul-miracles. The kingdom of God is some- 
what in its coming like the kingdom of self- 
consciousness. When does the child really 
become conscious of itself? It would take a 
sharp eye indeed to answer this question. 
Yet year after year the kingdom of self -con- 
sciousness dawns on unfolding minds. When 



164 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

does tlie kingdom of patriotism come to a 
child? It would take a sharp eye to answer 
this question. The kingdom of patriotism 
comes without observation. Except in rare 
instances it would be hard for an outsider to 
form the slightest conception of the growth 
of a child's patriotism. But the kingdom 
comes whether we observe its coming or not. 
Generation after generation of young pa- 
triots arise, each of whom would, if necessity 
came, die for his country. So with the unob- 
served coming of the kingdom of God. The 
influences of God's Spirit play around the 
unfolding soul in ways that we can not even 
suspect. If then there are moments when 
the outlook seems dark because there is no 
startling or marvelous manifestation of the 
presence of God in the world, let us steady 
ourselves by the thought of the silent ap- 
proach of this kingdom whose marchings we 
can not hear. 

A still further instance of the way that 
the kingdom comes without our being con- 



THE KINGDOM THAT COMETH 165 

scions of its approach is to be found in the 
changes that take place in the motives of 
men as the men pass ont of the kingdom of 
this world into the kingdom of the truth. 
The kingdom of God means that the man who 
has been living for himself mnst change his 
motive. He mnst cease to live for himself 
and begin to live for others. The realm of 
motive, however, is a hidden realm. The mo- 
tive may change without onr knowledge of 
the change. The outward deed may be the 
same. The change is world-wide from the 
old life to the new, but there may be nothing 
but the man's own statement to tell us of 
the change. 

Sometimes the most worthy Christians 
fall into lack of charity because of misunder- 
standing at this point. A man stands up in a 
religious service and professes that he has 
passed from death unto life. Surely such a 
passage must be accompanied by some re- 
markable outward transformation of life. 
But in our day it may be that there is little 



166 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

room for transformations in some lives. The 
recruits for the kingdom are changed in mo- 
tive. They are doing all things with a dif- 
ferent aim, but there is no call for them to 
change the manner of work or of living. 
Here is a man teaching school, or conducting 
a business, or carrying on a professional 
work. He will teach or plan or perform op- 
erations in the same way after the trans- 
formation as before. But there has been a 
transformation, nevertheless, and the trans- 
formation is the all-essential event in his life. 
I wonder if there would not be some dis- 
appointment if the kingdom of God should 
come this Christmas afternoon. To-mor- 
row's work would have to go on in many 
lives just about as it has always done. There 
would be many, many, who would be com- 
pelled to make radical change, but there are 
many others to whom a change would be es- 
sentially a change that would be without ob- 
servation. The inner motive would be trans- 
formed, but the outer life would be the same, 



THE KINGDOM THAT COMETH 167 

except, of course, in the religious exercises, 
and this might lead to confusion except to 
those who have seen something of the force 
of the Master's word. 

Still again in our thought of the advance 
of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ we 
have to bear in mind always the fact that 
there is some growth in grace, even with 
mature saints, that can in the nature of the 
case make but little outward sign. Let us 
take the case of the saint who year after year 
is growing in grace and in the knowledge of 
the Lord Jesus Christ. There may be no 
way for his increasing goodness to make any 
noticeable transformation in the outward 
world around hun. Suppose for example 
that during the past year you have won a 
notable victory in the depth of your own life. 
It may be a victory over a fault whose exist- 
ence no one but yourself suspected. Some 
temptation peculiarly your own was wont to 
assail you. You did not feel called upon to 
confess the fault to any one but God, and 



168 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

there is no reason why yon slionld tell ns jnst 
what the fanlt was, now that it is overcome. 
The victory has nevertheless been pro- 
foundly significant from yonr own stand- 
point. The world is better because you have 
won the victory, yet there is and can be no 
outward sign of the victory that makes loud 
report in the world of things. Or you have 
attained a keener spiritual insight since last 
Christmas. TThis has been more meaningful 
for your life than has any other experience 
you have known. But there may be no re- 
markable way of making this insight count in 
your dealing with the workaday world. The 
world is impressed by the coarser and more 
noticeable transformations. The transfor- 
mation of the drunkard across the way may 
not be nearly so great a work of grace as the 
illumination of your mind to the finer and 
fuller truths of God. Yet in an estimate of 
the world's progress the transformation of 
the drunkard would be taken into the ac- 
count and your own development would al- 



THE KINGDOM THAT COMETH 169 

most necessarily escape attention. In the 
real thought of the world's improvement, 
however, both the drunkard's victory over a 
base appetite and your own admission to the 
deeper understanding must be taken into the 
review. Is the world getting better ? Is the 
kingdom really coming? We must think it 
is. In invisible ways men and women are 
growing toward the light. 

Again, think of the changes that go on 
in our beliefs without our being conscious of 
them. We take the formal statement of the 
creed and put into it a newer and newer 
meaning as the years go by. We look back 
after the lapse of time to problems that once 
troubled us and are astonished beyond meas- 
ure to see how well we understand them. 
The situation is somewhat parallel to the 
situation of our general intellectual life. 
You remember how exceedingly hard some 
of the statements in the school text-books 
seemed to you during the days of your ex- 
perience as a pupil. You always left the 



170 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

book witE a feeling that yon did not under- 
stand, and when yon passed out of that book 
to another yon did so with a mind perhaps 
not half-satisfied. To-day yon come across 
that old school book. As yon tnm its pages 
to find the difficult passage which was once 
such a trial to yon yon can not discover 
it. Everything seems now perfectly plain. 
Whence has come the better understanding? 
It has come from the gradual changes that 
have been making you stronger in mind 
during the years. Just when the particular 
crisis came that made you perfectly able to 
see the meaning of the text-book there is ab- 
solutely no telling. 

Some illustrations are used till they are 
threadbare, to show how silently and gradu- 
ally the kingdom of evil comes upon the 
human heart. For example, there is the old, 
old illustration of the Canada thistle, a pest 
of the farmer's fields that comes without 
observation. The seed may be carried in the 
feathers of the passing birds, or it may even 



THE KINGDOM THAT COMETH 171 

float in the air without the slightest possi- 
bility of being detected. All that the farmer 
knows is that some springtime the signs of 
the hated weed are manifest. The illustra- 
tion is often used to show how the seeds of 
evil may be sown in onr minds without our 
suspecting their presence. Evil does thus 
come into our minds, but let us not be one- 
sided in our thoughts of unobserved com- 
ings. In the realm of the Spirit God's roses 
and lilies and violets send their seeds into 
our lives without our detecting anything 
more than a passing breeze. The seed falls 
and springs toward a harvest. 

So, too, in the kingdom of deepening love 
toward God and more complete dependence 
upon Him. We wonder sometimes if the 
kingdom of God's love really means much to 
us. Some have abundant reason for asking 
that question, but they are not always the 
ones most likely to ask it. It is more often 
asked by a good man who is looking for some 
very noticeable sign of the kingdom's pres- 



172 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

ence. Suppose we approach this matter from 
the side of an analogy often used to show the 
possibility of falling away slowly from God. 
We are told so frequently of two friends who 
little by little drift apart. They do not sus- 
pect the increasing separation, and are 
amazed to find at some crisis that they are 
leagues apart,— with no hope of re-union. 
So it is possible for the soul to drift from 
God. But the other side of the analogy is 
equally true. Some friends grow closer to- 
gether without suspecting the fact. Then 
when crisis comes they are astonished be- 
yond measure to see how vital the union has 
grown to be. So the love of God and in- 
creasing dependence upon Him become more 
and more real to many hearts. 

The situation is similar in relation to the 
thought of increasing power to serve God. 
The boy tries some feat of strength and finds 
his strength insufficient. Later he does what 
he has previously failed to do. The strength 
has come without observation. We are told 



THE KINGDOM THAT COMETH 173 

of those whose strength oozes away so im- 
perceptibly that they do not suspect until 
they bestir themselves and find the power 
gone. We ought to hear more of those whose 
strength increases so imperceptibly that they 
can only say in the day of trial that the 
kingdom of God has come upon them with- 
out observation. And it is thus with all 
those changes that take place in the depths 
below our field of vision,— changes that we 
could not see if we would. We sometimes 
tremble at the thought of the unknown pos- 
sibilities of evil in ourselves. Up from 
depths that we can not fathom there some- 
times leap impulses that can come only from 
evil. We tremble at the thought of what 
may be '^down cellar'' in our lives. The 
hidden depths, however, can be ruled by God, 
and even here He can preside over all the 
influences that work upon us so silently. He 
can work in these depths for the bringing in 
of the kingdom. 



THE KINGDOM LIKE UNTO A 

PEARL 



THE KINGDOM LIKE UNTO A 

PEARL 

Matt, xiii, 45, 46. 

We need not attempt an exposition of the 

main thought of the Master as He uttered 

the words of the text. All I care for on this 

Christmas morning,— this day of beautiful 

gifts, and, we trust, of beautiful impulses,— 

is the fact that the Master used the word 

^^ pearl.'' 

We get a valuable little glimpse into the 

mind of Jesus by the very fact that He said 

^^ pearl." It shows that He saw the beautiful 

things of this earth. He did not pass the 

jewels by as the Puritan would have done. 

He saw them and no doubt took notice of 

their surpassing beauty. The casual words 

of Jesus show a wide range of interest. This 

wide interest included the things which are 
12 177 



178 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

of value simply and solely for their beauty. 
Jesus did not treat His eyes after the man- 
ner of an ascetic. He apparently let His 
thought dwell lovingly upon the good things 
of this earth— reveling in the fascination of 
their beauty. If He could see the beauty 
of the lily it is certain that He saw also the 
beauty of the pearl. We feel a deepened 
human interest in the Master if we think 
of Him arrested by the brilliancy of a jewel 
and finding satisfaction in the gaze upon the 

gem. 

But there is still further significance in 
the use of the word. Not only does it show 
us the interest of the Master in the things of 
this earth, but it gives us a thought of use 
in framing our conceptions of the kingdom 
of God. Of course, the main aim in this 
speech to the disciples is the emphasis upon 
the absolute superiority of the kingdom to 
anything else whatsoever, but the use of the 
word ''pearl" itself is as suggestive as the 
direct statement of Jesus. 



THE KINGDOM OF PEAEL 179 

The word must have suggested to the 
plain minds of these disciples that the king- 
dom of God is to be regarded not only as a 
necessity, and not only as a source of sup- 
port and of comfort^ hut also as a luxury. 

An excellent man published an excellent 
book some years ago entitled ^^The Cure of 
Souls." The book is well worth any one's 
reading, but the title suggests a view of the 
gospel held by multitudes,— the view that 
the gospel is chiefly remedy. Souls are 
taken sick and when everything else fails 
they turn to the gospel. The gospel is a 
sort of last resort in extreme spiritual dis- 
tress. On that ground it is tolerated by 
many who can find no use for it in the ordi- 
nary conditions of normal life. 

We all recognize, however, the short- 
comings of this view. We do not think that 
we ^ome very close to an understanding 
of the Gospel truth when we speak of the 
Scriptures merely as a book of remedies. 
We pass at once to a larger conception and 



180 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

speak of the gospel as a comfort and 
daily food. We find in the gospel more 
than the satisfaction of pressing need at the 
time of extremity. We speak of Christ as 
the Bread of Life. He is the atmosphere 
which we breathe. He is useful to ns at all 

times. 

Now this is an immeasurable advance 
upon the earlier conception, and for the 
average experience it probably states the 
final truth. The ordinary Christian has done 
well if he has come to the place where he 
finds in the gospel the satisfaction of daily 
needs. This is no doubt the thought upon 
which Christ Himself would have us place 
the most stress. But there is a further con- 
ception, and that further conception is im- 
plied in this allusion to the pearl. The 
.gospel is not only medicine and bread and 
water and air,— it is also luxury. The higher 
reach of Christian experience comes when 
the disciple begins to find in the gospel the 
satisfaction of the craving for spiritual 



THE KINGDOM OF PEAEL 181 

luxury. The ordinary mind may not know 
what is meant by spiritual luxury, but the 
mind to which. Christ really addressed this 
word about the pearl will imder stand. 

Let us say, then, that Christ teaches a 
lesson here for a certain kind of practical 
men. He wishes to correct a thought of use- 
fulness. Some men approach the kingdom 
with a conception of practicalism which 
really does much to hide the true reality of 
the kingdom. Against this thought the 
Christ puts His word about the kingdom as a 
goodly pearl. Of what use is a pearl? Ask 
a certain type of man which is the more val- 
uable in his eyes,— the pearl or the oyster 
in which it has been found, and he will re- 
spond that his personal liking runs wholly 
to the oyster. We know, though, when we 
stop to think, that the craving for pearls is 
more worthy than the craving for oysters, 
useful as the oysters undoubtedly are. No,— 
we have not the highest thought of the king- 
dom of God until we come to see it as su- 



182 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

premely beautiful, as well as supremely 
useful. 

Suppose we sliould carry out to the ex- 
treme that idea of usefulness which we seem 
at times to hold. A great many arguments 
could "be found for our course. We might 
do away with a great deal of the expense of 
clothes, for example, for do we not all know 
that the expense of clothes is incurred largely 
in the effort to make them look well? "We 
might have a sort of practical Utopia, so 
far as clothes were concerned. We should 
insist first of all that the cloth should be of a 
most durable kind. We should next insist 
that the cloth should be cut solely with re- 
gard to serviceableness. All peculiarities of 
taste would of necessity be done away with. 
We could see very clearly that under such a 
scheme the expense of clothes could be re- 
duced to a minimum. We might go farther 
and carry our reforms into all departments 
of life. Wall paper, patterns in rugs, flower 
gardens,— except those producing useful 



THE KINGDOM OF PEAEL 183 

herbs— could all be done away with, while 
pictures and other works of pure art could 
be dispensed with at once. 

Of course, the moment we begin to look 
at the matter in this way we see a useful- 
ness in beauty that we did not before sus- 
pect. Let us remember that the same results 
would follow all attempts to take beauty out 
of religion. And since beauty does play such 
a part in our religious enjoyment it may be 
well for us to stop occasionally to see how 
worthy a factor it is. The kingdom should 
be sought not only for its usefulness in theT 
lower sense, but for its surpassing beauty as 
well. A beautiful church edifice, built with 
the thought of the worship of God in mind, 
is by its very beauty a preacher of the glo- 
ries of the kingdom. We know that God can 
be worshiped anywhere, but it seems the 
fitting thing to make His dwelling-place the 
most beautiful creation in the city. Some 
looking upon a beautiful temple might say, 
"Why was not this money rather given to 



184 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

tlie poor?'' They might deplore the erection 
of costly edifices whose usefulness for com- 
moner purposes is not so great as their in- 
trinsic beauty. Of course another building, 
capable of holding all the people that ever 
came to the fine structure, might be more 
cheaply built, but such critics need to re- 
member that while needless extravagance is 
always to be deplored, the poor need some 
other goods quite as much as they need 
bread. They need to see the thought of 
beauty as well as the thought of usefulness 
connected with the idea of the kingdom of 
God. They need to feast on the beauties of 
the kingdom quite as much as on the ma- 
terial bread that does not always come from 
heaven or lead to heaven. 

Moreover, the man who has this thought 
of the kingdom of God as supplying him with 
the truest luxuries of earth can get satisfac- 
tion out of the thought of the beauty of the 
Christ life. The life of the Master is sur- 
passingly useful. This we all understand. 



THE KINGDOM OF PEAEL 185 

The life is the bread and the air npon which 
we live, but it is more than that. It can be 
looked upon, and that rightfully, too, as the 
great luxury beside which all others sink into 
insignificance. The life is synunetrical. It 
is like a perfect jewel. We speak of it as the 
flawless life. The suggestion is that of a 
gem, perfect of its kind. We know some- 
thing of the beauty of Christ's words. We 
see beauty in the very texture of the Christ- 
thought itself, and find in the teaching of 
Jesus a symmetry of form and a fineness of 
expression that lift His words up at once to 
the high plane of spiritual luxuries. If we 
see His sacrifice,— not merely from the 
standpoint of its usefulness,— but from the 
standpoint of sheer beauty, we shall begin 
to appreciate more fully the greatness of the 
gift of God in Christ Jesus. 

With our text in mind we should think of 
the Christly deeds done around us, not only 
from the point of view of men seeking for 
practical and beneficial forces, but from the 



186 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

point of view of men seeking for spiritual 
jewels. There are many whose lives are not 
remarkably useful in this world, but who 
nevertheless are a perpetual delight to the 
God of all beauty. Their deeds affect no 
great transformation. They do not weigh, 
as much, so far as actual result is concerned, 
as the order of the foreman of a band of 
street laborers, but they are full of the fine- 
ness that comes from God. In such God 
takes great delight. We are told that many 
a gem of purest ray serene lies unseen at 
the bottom of the deep, but the most essen- 
tial fact about this line is that it is not true,— 
God sees and rejoices in the jewel deed, the 
jewel word. The occasion may have been 
something entirely trifling and insignificant, 
and the result may have passed unnoticed. 
But the deed itself may have been surpass- 
ingly fine. A bit of kindly tact in conversa- 
tion, that passed unnoticed by every hearer, 
a little touch of kindliness absolutely insig- 
nificant when measured by the more useful 



THE KINGDOM OF PEAEL 187 

things that we are all expected to do, a re- 
straint put upon the lips lest the utterance 
might injure a sensitive spirit,— things of 
this kind are the spiritual jewels to be seen 
around us if we have eyes to see. In these 
God delights. 

Again, we are often likely to put em- 
phasis on big-heartedness. The hail and 
hearty, even boisterous greeting! how we 
enjoy it! We all indeed stand in need of 
being bigger-hearted. Let there not be the 
slightest misunderstanding here, but it must 
be remembered that big-heartedness is not 
necessarily great-heartedness. The big- 
hearted man, after all, is quite likely to lack 
real fineness of feeling. His feeling may be 
rough-and-ready and lack the fineness of an 
inward and deeply spiritual quality. The 
big-hearted man seems to understand all 
classes of people, but a little investigation 
may show that he does not really come as 
close to them in helpfulness as we had imag- 
ined. The man is a rare man who can sym- 



188 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

pathize with all people and yet have any 
very valuable message for this or that par- 
ticular person. This rare man is the ideal, 
to be sure, but he is not often found in real 
life. It may happen that the man who has 
not been of the sort that the world calls big- 
hearted is, nevertheless, fine-hearted. He 
may have a delicacy of sympathy that big- 
heartedness knows not of. The fine hearts 
are quite as likely to be of service in the 
world as their more demonstrative brethren, 
and from the standpoint of beauty their 
lives may have a quality which is the delight 
of angels. Such men may not be able to 
take many persons within the range of their 
sympathy, but those whom they can take may 
find in the sympathy the one luxury of their 
lives. So, too, in the sphere of Christian 
doing. The vast number of good deeds is 
not the only consideration. The quality is 
to be considered. 

The word pearl gives us a further sug- 
gestion. We all think and say a great deal 



THE KINGDOM OF PEAEL 189 

about the nearness of God. It is one of the 
glories of the gospel of our day that it gives 
us an accessible God. The kingdom is all 
around us and no one of us need be at any- 
time far from it. This is gloriously true, but 
qualification is necessary. The kingdom is 
around us in the same sense that the air is 
around us. It is within reach of all, and all 
may come easily into its possession. But, 
after all, the kingdom is not only medicine 
and bread and air, but pearl as well. The 
pearls are not so accessible. So that there 
is a sense in which the kingdom should be 
the object of perpetual search. We are like 
unto merchantmen seeking goodly pearls. 
The pearls are for all, but many do not seem 
to know of their existence, or if they know 
they do not have the interest that would take 
them on a voyage of pearl discovery. 

Literature is to-day the property of all 
who care to learn to read. Great hosts avail 
themselves of the privilege of reading. The 
treasures that could really be called luxuries 



190 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

are appreciated by the few. Many are called 
to the enjoyment of these intellectnal lux- 
uries, but few are chosen. The deeper sug- 
gestiveness, the subtle beauty, the fineness of 
the texture— this does not appear at first 
glance. So with the other spiritual luxuries. 
Take friendship. The blessing of friendship 
is open to all, but how many appreciate the 
real luxuries of friendship? These do not 
appear in an afternoon ^s acquaintance. 
They come with the long journeys through 
the years. In one sense the kingdom is near 
us,— even at the doors. In another sense it 
is a long distance from us. Of course the sea 
is the sea, and once on the sea we may travel 
to any part of it, but we may be a long dis- 
tance from the pearl fisheries. The jewels 
are found in the out-of-the-way places, but 
if we will we may have them. There are 
South Africas and Australias and Indias in 
religious experience. The travelers thither 
can find pearls and diamonds. 



THE RECOVERY OF THE LOST 



THE RECOVERY OF THE LOST 

Luke XV. 

In a classic passage Charles Dickens has 
dwelt upon Christmas as the season of re- 
union, of return of wanderers, of longing for 
the lost who may be restored. It is indeed 
Christian to spend Christmas in thinking of 
Jesus as the Seeker for the lost. 

In the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke 's Gos- 
pel there are stories of three merry-makings. 
All deal with the restoration of the lost,— 
the shepherd's joy over finding a lost sheep, 
the woman's joy over the recovery of the lost 
coin, the banquet which a father gave over 
the return of a son. 

Jesus was called Jesus because He was to 
save from sin. He came to seek and to save 
the lost. We can keep close to the spirit of 
Christmas and understand something, though 

13 193 



194 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

of course not all, of tlie Master's work as 
Savior by looking at tlie different meanings 
of the word ''lost'' suggested in Luke's pic- 
tures of rejoicing. It may be that we shall 
discover that the lost are not after all merely 
those who roam the streets on Christmas 
eve, vagabond and destitute. It may be that 
some of the most completely lost persons sit 
at Christmas feasts, and possibly some of 
these think of themselves as rightfully wear- 
ing the name of Christ. It may be well for 
all of us to celebrate the day of Christ by 
guarding against certain spiritual tendencies 
which make for inner lostness, and by de- 
voting ourselves anew to seeking and saving 
the lost whom we do not often think of a.s 
lost. We turn to Luke's stories. 

First of all the Master tells of the merry- 
making over the finding of the Lost Sheep. 
The sheep had not come to destruction when 
the shepherd found it. The wolves had not 
yet torn it or the cold winds killed it. The 
sheep was lost simply because it was wander- 



THE EECOVERY OF THE LOSO? 195 

ing in the wilderness without a leader. We 
are not forcing the meaning of the parable 
when we say that the Master has in His 
mind here the vast class of persons who are 
moving through life, or rather aronnd about 
in life, with no sense of direction. Such per- 
sons live wandering, drifting lives. Many 
such who gather around Christmas tables are 
as truly lost as the vagrants in the streets. 
The first type of the lost condition, then, 
can be characterized as that which lacks 
sense of direction. In spiritual things some 
do not know which direction is East Some 
do not know even their right hand from their 
left. If we wish to come to an understand- 
ing of this spiritual condition along the line 
of illustration we may say that we can detect 
a kind of intellectual lostness even in the 
conversation of some men. We do not refer 
to imbeciles or lunatics, but to the men whose 
conversation has no sense of direction. Even 
in their most serious moments they begin 
with the conventional reference to the 



196 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

weatlier, thence jump to politics, tlie Civil 
War, crop prospects, and wireless telegra- 
phy-all within two minutes. The mind is 
working wholly hy what the students call the 
law of association. The problem in dealing 
with such a mind is to hring it to the place 
where it can work according to the law of 
reason. And that is a large part of the prob- 
lem of education,— to save minds by giving 
them a sense of direction. The great dram- 
atist has told us of the plain, blunt man who 
only speaks straight on. This sentence was 
a part of Mark Antony's craftiness, for the 
plain blunt man never does speak straight 
on, -the plain blunt man, that is, who has 
never been trained. The plain blunt man 
goes around in circles. As it is in the train- 
ing of the plain blunt man, so it is in the 
training of the scientist or the philosopher. 
The scientist can be lost in the mass of 
unassociated facts. His salvation is in a 
formula which gives him a sense of direction. 
The philosopher becomes a philosopher only 



THE EECOVEEY OF THE LOST 197 

wlien he is oriented in the field of philosophy. 
Nothing is more deplorable intellectually 
than the condition of a student who has mass 
upon mass of facts and theories without a 
sense of direction as to the way through them 
or out of them. Educational salvation, I 
repeat, comes with the sense of direction. 

Applying now our thought to moral and 
spiritual problems we have to say that men 
are lost morally not merely when they are 
abandoned reprobates or hardened unbeliev- 
ers, but when in the realm of moral and spir- 
itual life they have lost their sense of direc- 
tion. For example, in the field of moral 
practice a man may have abandoned the 
moral ideals of his youth because of their 
fancied narrowness without being able to 
get hold of anything broader. Or he may 
become confused by trying to find the de- 
ciding element in moral worth in the out- 
ward deed alone and not in the inner spirit, 
so that when he finds good men doing deeds 
which he has not up to that time approved 



198 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

of He is at a loss. Or he may have been dis- 
conraged at the lack of material result which 
has followed his devotion to right, and has 
concluded that the wicked's flourishing like 
the green bay-tree is proof enough that the 
wicked are in closer harmony with the life- 
giving centers. For any one of these reasons, 
or for a hundred others like them, a man may 
lose his sense of moral direction. He may 
not become a whit less respectable in the 
eyes of his neighbors than before, but he is 
lost like a sheep in the wilderness. The 
wolves of temptation may not have devoured 
him or the winds of hard circumstance over- 
come him,— but he is in peril through not 
knowing the way. 

So also it is in the religious realm. A man 
does not have to« be a blasphemous railer 
to be lost in the sense in which the Master 
uses the term. He may have been devout 
enough to start with, but the making of the 
many religious books of which there is no 
end, the discovery that many high truths 



THE EECOVERY OF THE LOBT 199 

have very lowly antecedents, tlie increasing 
emphasis on the materialistic side of things 
by science, or more especially by the great 
commercial forces, some glimpse into the 
scattered excellences of systems of thought 
outside of Christianity,— things like these, 
and there are many such things, may con- 
fuse the mind. There is a way through all 
these difficulties, but some thoughtful minds 
do not find it, and are lost in that they do 
not know the points of the compass. They 
begin by putting a great many other systems 
of thought and of practice on the same plane 
as the Christian system. They think that 
they thus are to live in the elevated atmos- 
phere of a high plateau, and end by finding 
themselves in a deep and smothering valley 
with no way out which they can see. Put- 
ting any and every other aspect of life on 
the same plane of importance as the religious 
is apt to end in utter bewilderment as to 
relative values. 

Christ comes to seek and to save the lost. 



200 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

He comes to bring into life a sense of direc- 
tion as to religions and moral trntli. He does 
this not by setting before men cold and bar- 
ren abstract principles. We know that even 
in the realm of the most abstract intellectual 
themes the teacher who succeeds best is the 
teacher who knows how to shepherd the 
minds who look to him for instruction. The 
great work begun by the founders of schools 
of thought has been carried on to further 
conquests by those who stood in close per- 
sonal relation to the founder. There has 
come into the mind of the disciple not only 
an intellectual grasp on the truth taught by 
the leader, but a personal enthusiasm for 
the leader himself. It is a great mistake to 
imagine that movements in philosophy, for 
example, have gone on by the unfolding of 
an inner dialectic of reason as their driving 
force. In no realm is the influence of vital 
affectional contact more to be taken into ac- 
count than in the growth of great thought 
movements. Now if Christ had done noth- 



THE EECOVERY OF THE LOST 201 

ing more than to give men a sense of direc- 
tion by a formal statement of His truth He 
would have done much. His leading, how- 
ever, is like the leading of any great prophet, 
—it is a personal and pastoral leading. He 
leads men by winning their love, by being 
patient with their misunderstandings, by 
bearing with their infirmities until by com- 
municating His spirit to them He brings 
them out of the wilderness. They cease to 
wander. He does not add greatly to the 
store of religious facts, but He shows the 
way. He begets the sense of spiritual di- 
rection. 

The next parable is the story of joy on 
the discovery of the lost coin. In what sense 
was the coin lost? Not in the sense that any 
damage had been as yet done to the coin 
itself. It was a good coin when found. It 
was made of the right kind of metal and had 
the right image and superscription. The 
coin was lost simply in that it was out of 
right relations. It had been swept out with 



202 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

tlie dust or had rolled off into the comer or 
down through the crack. If we may carry 
out the suggestiveness of the word itself, the 
coin was lost because it was out of circu- 
lation. 

The Master's figures of speech are all 
thought-provoking, and none more so than 
this likening of a life to a coin. We do not 
do violence to the spirit of the parable when 
we allow our minds to linger for a moment 
with the suggestiveness of tlie word ''coin." 
"We get a new glimpse of the part which a 
human life is to play in the world when we 
think of the work done by a coin,— loosening 
the industrial and social forces, leaving be- 
hind it blessing or curse. The man who puts 
himself in right working relationships to the 
powers that make for righteousness may be 
looked upon as part of God's own gold buy- 
ing for the kingdom of Heaven and for God 
Himself delights which can come in no other 
way. And the parable of the lost coin sug- 
gests to us the thought of those good lives 



THE EECOVERY OF THE LOST 203 

which by the forces of circumstances per- 
haps have somehow been dropped out of the 
world's actual working life or have been 
swept to one side by the force of overpower- 
ing conditions. Good gold, but out of circu- 
lation. Many such gather around Christmas 
tables. And then there are the persons who 
take themselves out of circulation. The sad 
part of it is that very often these persons 
are among the best in the world, so far as 
their own life is concerned. Only for one 
reason or another they have gotten out of 
touch with the working forces of the king- 
dom of service. Such persons are apt to be 
persons of a very fine type of sensitiveness, 
and this very sensitiveness itself may work 
harm. For example, a young man is just 
coming forth to the work of the world from 
his studies. He has been a faithful student. 
He has mastered thoroughly the principles 
with which he expects to mark the world for 
good. "With the first contact with the world, 
however, there is a dash of cruel disappoint- 



204 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

ment. The world does not care to be marked. 
Moreover, there are certain tongh intractabil- 
ities with which the student finds his theory 
nnable to cope. He is discouraged at the 
prospect of remaining a dreamy doctrinaire 
on the one hand, or of descending to the 
cheaply practical on the other. In the di- 
lemma he gets ont of circulation altogether. 
He is lost through what might be called a 
kind of academic sensitiveness. Then there 
is the man lost through aesthetic sensitive- 
ness. He has the same kind of shrinking 
from the rough and soiled life of the world 
that a crisp and shining coin might have from 
the grimy hands into which it is to pass on 
its way from the mint at the beginning to 
the melting pot at the end. Then there are 
the discouraged persons who are appalled at 
the greatness of the work to be done and at 
the smallness of their own ability. They 
forget the vast results which follow if the 
smallest coin simply keeps itself in constant 
circulation. 



■»>^ >M i| B ^JIJ. 



THE RECOVEEY OF THE LOST 205 

To save all such persons to the life of the 
world the Master comes. He helps men to 
see the point of connection between the 
largest thought and the least task. He 
speaks new dignity into the hardest drudg- 
ery and new might into the least lives. His 
final picture of the awards at the end of the 
world, majestic as it is with the glory of 
the spectacle of the nations assembled before 
Him, takes its point from the kind of service 
which is most highly honored. Not the great 
statesmen, not the mighty leaders in thought, 
not the great preachers, but the men who 
have done such little deeds of kindness that 
they themselves have forgotten them because 
of their very insignificance— these are the 
ones who are to receive the kingdom pre- 
pared for them from the foundation of the 
world. And it is well that it should be so, 
for those who can reveal the love of Christ 
through the cup of water and the loaf of 
bread and the visit in time of sickness are 
those who make the effective revelation. 



206 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

They are the ones who have made them- 
selves and the gospel profoundly intelligible. 
As we come into conversation with some who 
have mightily influenced the world for good 
it may be that we are struck by the common- 
place in their thought. We wonder at the 
secret of their strength until we reflect that 
it may be the very commonplace itself. Their 
secret is in extraordinary persistence in 
using the ordinary. ^^The nimble sixpence 
does more work than the slow shilling.'' 
And their ordinariness is not ordinariness,— 
they have seen the extraordinariness of the 
ordinary under the light of the Christ vis- 
ion. They have caught the spirit of Him 
who when He was thinking the profoundest 
thoughts concerning Himself, namely, that 
He came from God and that He went to God, 
took a towel and began to wash the disci- 
ples' feet. They have seen at least this much 
of the secret of Christ's redemption, that our 
lives are good gold, but none too good to 
buy this world and all its power for the 
kingdom of Ood. 



THE EECOVEEY OF THE LOST 207 

This is what our lives are given us for, 
to be used in connection with the present 
service of the kingdom of God, to be geared 
in somehow to the forces of this world to 
make them Christian, to be spent in buying 
spiritual treasures for the kingdom of God. 
If we will not do this we miss the one end 
for which we have been begotten. There is a 
melting pot for gold that has been with- 
drawn from circulation, but there is no melt- 
ing pot for souls which are out of circula- 
tion. That is to say, there is no making a 
life over into anything else. The life that 
withdraws its treasures from actual work in 
the service of this present life sins in a pro- 
founder sense than the money miser who 
hoards gold and freezes out the industrial 
and commercial life. There is a sin worse 
in its consequences for society than the sin 
of loss of actual gold. It is the sin of spir- 
itual demonetization by which a man, good 
in himself, lets his life lose its purchasing 
power by withdrawing himself from actual 



208 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

contact with tlie working forces of righteous- 
ness. 

The Master goes on to the parable of the 
son who was lost in the far conntry. The 
essential trnth abont this son's condition is 
all told when it is said of him that after he 
had been reduced to the companionship of 
swineherds he came to himself. The son was 
lost because he had not come to himself. 
Many of us may incline to think that the 
sin of the son consisted essentially in the 
riotous living, but the riotous living is an 
incident, or rather a consequence following 
from the son's view of himself and of his 
father. The son really had no expressed 
view of himself. He had not thought any- 
thing out, but the view on which he acted 
was that his relation to his father was simply 
one of advantage in that he could get hold 
of the good things. He counted his father 
simply among the good things which had 
happened to him, and he proposed to enjoy 
the material possessions to the utmost. 



*^' 



THE EECOVEEY OF THE LOST 209 

There was no thouglit of sonship on the 
boy's part, no thought of seriousness or 
respojLsibility of any kind. The son's life 
moved simply on the animal plane of the 
enjoyment of material goods. The son never 
had arisen to an understanding of what son- 
ship and fatherhood mean. He had not come 
to himself. He was lost because he had not 
come to himself. No power had as yet come 
into his life to awaken him. 

The parable is the classic expression of 
the goodness of God to those who in paths 
of sin give themselves to riotons and rebel- 
lions lives. Even after such have spent all 
and have been reduced to nothing by famine 
and after they are of no worth to a country 
in time of grave crisis they are of worth to 
God. The parable can never lose its force 
for all such. Yet we must not miss the point 
in those words, ^^when he came to himself." 
The rioting was just the consequence and 
sign of an inner state, and that inner state 
may be the state of many whose inner spirit 

14 



210 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

does not find ontward expression in the same 
way as did the younger son's. There are 
other kinds of animalism than the animalism 
of riotonsness. There is the animalism of a 
kind of wolfish instinct of the chase, for ex- 
ample. If the younger son had taken his 
goods and gone into a far country and there 
increased his substance mightily by driving 
all business competitors to the wall, he would 
have been just as much beside himself, and 
quite as much lost in animalism as was the 
rioter. He might have been more lost, for 
such a course might have even more surely 
kept all kindly feeling to the good father 
from rising in his heart. The animalism 
which is just a survival of a kind of wild 
instinct of the chase is just as sure to keep 
a man from coming to himself, from seeing 
himself as the really human being which God 
intends him to be, as is the animalism of 
riotousness. No, the son's sin was not- 
merely in wasting the money. He might 
never have come to himself even if he had 



THE EECOVERY OF THE LOST 211 

increased the money and made only sucli per- 
sonal expenditures as the most staid in the 
community would have sanctioned. Or there 
is the animalism of sluggishness and sheer 
amiable complacency, the inability to see 
anything which calls for divine discontent, 
the willingness to look upon sorrow and sin 
without personal discomfort or without an 
impulse to help. The son might have in- 
vested his substance profitably and have 
lived on in comfort and yet have never come 
to himself. He might never have thought of 
his father's longing for him, he might not 
have had any feelings which would have made 
such longing intelligible if he had felt it. He 
might never have risen above the animal, or 
at least the sub-human plane, to an under- 
standing of what his life was intended to be. 
In one sense being lost consists in being 
lost to ourselves. In one sense coming to 
God is just coming to ourselves. When the 
son came to himself, when the slumbering 
humanity in him at last awoke and rebelled 



212 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

against tlie food of the swine, lie came at the 
same time to his father. When he came to 
himself he saw that his sin consisted not 
merely in spending the money,— it consisted 
in having not been worthy to be called a son. 
He had never really looked upon himself as 
a son. How far did the yonnger son really 
travel? The real journey which he took was 
the distance between his thought of his father 
when he left home and his thought when he 
started back. The real distance was the dis- 
tance between the tone with which he said, 
^'Father, give me the portion of goods that 
falleth to me'' and the tone with which he 
said, ^^ Father, I have sinned.'' 

Christ is the Savior of the lost son, in 
that He is the quickener of the life to an 
understanding of itself. Through Him the 
thoughts of many hearts are revealed. The 
revelation of the spirit of Christ, as we see 
it in the New Testament and as we see it 
caught and reflected in good lives, brings men 
to an understanding of themselves. It may 



THE EECOVERT OF THE LOST 213 

require all the sharp teaching of failure to 
bring men to the place where they are will- 
ing to look npon Christ, but when they really 
look upon Him and see the goodness of God 
in Him they are on the path to themselves 
and the road back to the Father's house. 
The world needs to-day as ever the thought 
of God as we see Him in Christ Jesus. There 
are many who believe in God who look upon 
Him simply as the great purveyor and care 
for nothing more. They think that if God 
will really divide with men His living all will 
be well, and some even erect this thought into 
an all-sufficient creed with the pronounce- 
ment that if we can just find a way to get 
hold of more of the good things of the Al- 
mighty's material possessions, we shall have 
all the redemption which the world needs. 
The picture of the younger son wasting his 
substance is the reductio ad absurdum of thi^ 
argument. Men will never find themselves 
on a creed like this. They must come to the 
higher thought of the goodness of God as 



214 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

seen in Christ and turn to Him before they 
can be themselves. The world does not need 
angelic lives, but it does need human lives. 
The path to real humanness is at the same 
time the path to real divineness. 

We come at last to the part of the parable 
which deals with the elder son, and he is the 
last type of the lost condition of whom we 
wish to speak. Some may not think of him 
as lost at all. They may think of him as the 
faithful helper of his father, remaining at 
home during the wild career of the younger 
son. The sympathy of some may go out to 
the elder son as really somewhat abused by 
the extravagant welcome of the returning 
prodigal. The picture of the Master is too 
well drawn, however, for us to mistake its 
meaning. Christ is here dealing with a per- 
ennial type of spiritually lost life, the life 
lost because of a certain petty littleness and 
smallness. Every detail in the picture adds 
to the clearness with which we discern the 
spiritual littleness of the type which the 



THE EECOVERY OF THE LOST 215 

Master is striving to set forth. The elder 
son may never have strayed a mile from his 
father 's house, hut he stands out before us as 
an instance of the completeness with which 
a man can get himself lost at home. 

The elder son has a little thought of his 
relation to his father. He regards himself 
merely as the servant of his father. ^^Lo, 
these many years do I serve thee.'' He 
stands for that small type of Christian life 
which never rises higher than the thought of 
being a servant of God. The idea of real 
sonship never comes within the horizon of 
this small view. "With the elder son it seems 
to have been a matter of paying his way by 
service and not of entering into sympathetic 
companionship with his father. The father 
had yearned for companionship, but the son 
had given him service of the hireling type. 
Of course the true son of God is to serve God, 
but the service is to be of the kind which 
is loaded with kindly spirit toward the 
Father, and which is to act simply as the 



216 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

means for showing sncli spirit. The service 
looked at in and of itself is altogether in- 
significant. God has not put ns on the earth 
for the sake of getting certain work done. 
He can find better servants than we are for 
the performance of the work itself. The 
child sends to the absent parent a letter. The 
father cherishes the letter because the letter 
shows the will of the child to come into in- 
terested and affectionate commn^nion with the 
parent. The letter has no great valne from 
the standpoint of penmanship. If the prob- 
lem is simply to get a penman, the father 
can do better than to rely upon the six-year- 
old child. So with all onr works. They are 
scrawling messages of good-will to God and 
have their sole valne as such. The greatest 
works which men can do are of donbtfnl 
valne merely as works. If it were a mere 
matter of getting the work done, the Almighty 
conld transform this material nniverse with- 
out onr help a great deal better than with 
onr help. He conld have in the beginning 



THE EECOVEEY OF THE LOST 217 

made, with a few earthqnakes, a far better 
water-way across the Isthmus of Panama, for 
example, than we can make in a hundred 
years. But the glory of God's Fatherhood 
is that it is a serious Fatherhood and has left 
some things undone for us to finish, not that 
we can do the work better, but that through 
the doing of the work we can come to an 
understanding of the Father better. After 
we have done all we are unprofitable serv- 
ants, but we remember that we are not serv- 
ants at all, but sons. The Almighty Father 
values the work for the spirit which it re- 
veals. The thought of the relation of the 
soul to God as the relation of a servant to a 
master is a hard and barren one. The large 
view comes with the thought that God in His 
kindness puts a value into our work which 
there is really nothing in the work itself to 
warrant. This means that if we are striv- 
ing to come up into companionship with Him 
He graciously takes the will for the deed, and 
puts upon the scrawling work a value alto- 



218 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

gether out of proportion to anything in the 
work itself. The elder son was a little man — 
he looked upon his father as a master and 
himself as a hireling. 

This aspect of littleness is set before us, 
we repeat, in every detail of the parable. 
The son has a small view of his work. It 
is a mechanical work. It is a keeping of 
commandments rather than a living in the 
spirit. ^^I never transgressed a command- 
ment of Thine, ^' the ^^ never" creed and the 
^ ^ commandment ' ^ creed. In the spiritual 
world of relationship to God two negatives, 
or any number of them for that matter, can 
hardly be brought to make an affirmative. 
In the spiritual world vital and enkindling 
communion is hardly possible till the plane 
of mere commandment has been far tran- 
scended. Equally small is the son's thought 
of reward. ^^Thou never gavest me a kid 
that I might make merry with my friends. '^ 
The thought of reward in the very com- 
panionship of the father has not dawned. It 



THE EECOVEEY OF THE LOST 219 

is hard to avoid the suspicion of hninor in 
the touch which makes the elder son talk 
about making merry with his friends, for the 
portrait which is drawn of him would, make 
us think him a loveless, mechanical sort of 
person who could value neither a friend nor 
a present. Men whose work is all service 
after the manner of the hireling are not espe- 
cially likely to have friends with whom to 
make merry, and not especially likely to 
make merry with any one, and not especially 
likely to appreciate the gift of a kid except 
from its market possibilities. 

If all this seems severe, we have to point 
out the final touch of smallness which is 
really most damaging of all — the heartless- 
ness of this little man. The brother is not 
a brother, but ^Hhy son.'' The worst con- 
struction is put upon that son's past, ^'He 
hath devoured thy living with harlots. ' ' We 
have here the setting forth of that type of 
holiness which can show a fine fervor of 
wrath against sin, especially the sin of fleshly 



220 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

indulgence, and at the same time no trace 
of warm hnman feeling of sympathy for sin- 
ners. The type of piety which hates sin is 
all right in its way, bnt its way is a short 
way. The noble type of piety thinks not so 
much of the sin as of the sinner, and strives 
to put him in the way of restoration. Some 
of the crudest persons are the good persons 
who never have been enlarged to see the 
divineness of the human kindness which can 
so love men as to be willing to go to any 
length to help them out of their sin. The 
little view has such desperate fear of sin that 
it will not go near sinners for fear of being 
contaminated. 

How does the father in the parable deal 
with the smallness of the elder son? By 
throwing around him a perfect flood of his 
own largeness of soul. He ignores the petti- 
ness and the meanness in a large appeal, an 
appeal which moves far above the plane of 
the son, but which by its very height may 
tempt the son to a spiritual ascent. ^^Thou 



THE EECOVEEY OF THE LOST 221 

art ever with me and all that I have is thine. ' ' 
Then follows the exalted speech, ^^It is meet 
that we should make merry and be glad" — 
the splendid appeal to the fitness of things 
which sweeps everything before it. The real 
prodigal in this parable is the father. Over 
against the wastefulness of the prodigal who 
spent money in riotous living and the waste- 
fulness of the little son who allowed all the 
greatness of the 'father to flow past him 
through the years he places his own lavish 
love, which reckons the money spent as 
nought and the years of mechanical service 
as nought if only both sons can be won for 
real sonship. 

The life of Christ means the lavishness 
of God. The cross of Christ means the pro- 
fusion of self-sacrifice. We have been speak- 
ing of different types of the lost condition, 
and perhaps we have seen something of the 
danger of the wandering life, and of the life 
which gets out of working relation to the 
forces which help on the cause of righteous- 



222 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

ness, and of tlie life which has not yet come 
to itself, and of the life which has never risen 
above a low and small plane. The danger 
may be greater than anything hinted at in 
these pages, for it may be possible to wander 
so far that there is no thought of longer seek- 
ing the right direction, or to remain out of 
connection with working forces so long as to 
have lost all desire ever to come again into 
circulation, or to remain beneath the real 
human plane so long that a final stupor 
settles upon the life, or to become so petty 
in the range of interests that the spiritual 
nature dwindles to a kind of spiritual van- 
ishing point. We do not pretend to have 
considered all the ways by which men be- 
come lost. We do feel, however, that so 
various and multitudinous is the revelation 
of God in Christ Jesus and so large is that 
love, that any life which is interested enough 
in the kingdom of God to raise a question 
about its own relation to that kingdom can 
find for itself ample provision in the full life 



THE EECOVERY OF THE LOST 223 

of Christ for its own particular needs. 
Above all, we feel that the very largeness 
of the heart of God as laid bare in Christ 
is sufficient guarantee that Grod so knows our 
proneness to wander and to get away from 
the working forces and to settle down be- 
neath ourselves and to miss the large things, 
that He can deal with all these and all other 
failings if we but look to Him for help. The 
Son of man is come to seek and to save the 
lost. The Son of man reveals a Grod who 
knows every path out of His kingdom, and 
the way back from every far country. 



THE CHRISTMAS FEAST 



15 



THE CHRISTMAS FEAST 

^\ . . Our . . . bread/'— Matt, vi, 11. 

We look forward with joy to the approach 
of the Christmas dinner. We feel that there 
is a sort of appropriateness about the cele- 
bration of Christmas with a feast of good 
things. The birth of Christ means the 
sanction and sanctification of all legitimate 
hnman satisfactions; and Christmas day 
should not suggest asceticism. The gifts of 
the day, the table spread with dainties, are 
lawful and appropriate parts of the Christ- 
mas festivities. Christ Himself was a Guest 
at feasts. He accepted costly gifts which 
came out of the affection of His disciples. 
Far be it from me to sound a jarring 
note as this happy feast day draws near. 
Let precious offerings be made to wife and 
husband and children and friends in the name 

227 



228 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

of that Christ who blesses and ennobles the 
delights of hnman companionship. Call the 
wanderers home and heap the table with the 
best the larder can f nrnish ! Still, in all our 
Christmas feasting let ns not forget the need 
of Christian feasting. The Spirit of Christ 
shonld reign at the table which rejoices in 
the good-cheer which celebrates the day of 
Christ. 

This means, of course, that there should 
really be a spiritual aspect to the Christmas 
dinner. The physical and animal part of the 
menu should not be allowed to usurp the 
first place. We do not refer merely to such 
gross matters as over-indulgence. We refer, 
rather, to the emphasis on cost for cost^s 
own sake. In a previous sermon we have 
rejoiced over a fineness of spirit like that 
of the woman who could break an alabaster 
hox of ointment on the feet of Jesus. The 
extravagance there, however, was not ma- 
terial so much as spiritual. A great love was 
to be revealed, and the extravagant gift was 



THE CHRISTMAS FEAST 229 

the only adequate revelation. There is, on 
the other hand, an extravagance for the sheer 
sake of extravagance itself. Christmas is 
used in an nnchristly way when it is made 
the excnse for worldliness and earthliness 
of this kind. We are coming pretty clearly 
to see in these days that extravagant ban- 
quets which lay the emphasis npon the ^^so 
much per plate" are very questionable af- 
fairs. The cost may be due to the high skill 
of the chef, and the dish may be indeed a 
creation of art, but too high a price for any- 
thing to eat is an exaltation of an animal 
and not a human or Christly ideal. 

The Christian's regard for the Christ- 
ideal will keep him from over-indulgence. 
His regard for men ought to exert the same 
restraining influence. Suppose men applaud 
an extravagant display. Their applause 
shows that their taste is being debauched 
and corrupted. Suppose they protest. The 
sad feature about the Christmas feast is 
not merely that some are poor and have not 



230 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

the good things which weight the rich man's 
table. The sad fact is the bitterness which 
the sight of these things begets in the poor 
man's breast. Still, the protest of the poor 
man against his rich neighbor's extravagant 
self-indulgence is essentially just. We may 
say all we please about the difference be- 
tween the rich man and the poor man con- 
sisting only in this: that the poor man is 
angry at lacking the opportunity to do what 
the rich man does — but such utterance is too 
easy and too cheap. To see money wasted 
by a rich man when the poor man's children 
get only the Christmas which they see in the 
store windows and which they dream about 
at night calls forth a feeling which is more 
than mere selfish jealousy. The contrast is 
too painful. A man not at all radical or 
revolutionary in temperament may look upon 
a Fifth Avenue parade during the fashion- 
able season with considerable misgiving as 
to the social effect. The motor-cars, and the 
horses, and the gowns are all beautiful 



THE CHEISTMAS FEAST 231 

enough in themselves, but only too often they 
are being enjoyed by some who have never 
done a really hard day's work in all their 
lives. Besides, Fifth Avenue is altogether 
too close to the East Side. It is contrasts 
like that between Fifth Avenue and the East 
Side which have made revolutions so catas- 
trophic and bloody. 

Understand, now, not a word of this is 
intended as looking toward socialism or any- 
thing else except the spirit of thoughtfulness 
with which the Christian should come to the 
Christmas dinner. He will come to his dinner 
with great joy, and his dear ones will adorn 
themselves with the gifts which he has be- 
stowed upon them, but all this will be done 
in a spirit of Christian thoughtfulness. ^ 

The thoughtful Christian will even do 
more than think of a high ideal of Christian 
restraint as he comes to his feast. He will 
reflect upon the truth that the wealth which 
is his, be the amount great or small, is not 
altogether his own creation. It is a matter 



232 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

of commonplace in current thinking tliat our 
material good things are social products. 
Give us our daily bread, says the Lord's 
Prayer. It is well that we at least occa- 
sionally put the emphasis upon the word our. 
We work together for the making of the 
bread — and the workers include not merely 
farmers and machinists and bankers and 
millers and bakers and grocers and delivery- 
men, but really include also all those who 
live together in an industrial society. The 
very fact that people live together in com- 
munities creates wealth, and very often the 
fortunate owner of certain lands or other 
properties sees his wealth increase through 
the growth of the industrial community with- 
out any efforts of his own. A very dull and 
foolish, even stupid, person might by the ac- 
cident of bequest get possession of a tract 
of land like that in lower Manhattan, where 
the exigencies of commercial life force vast 
sections of Broadway up into the air in the 
form of concrete and steel skyscrapers. Now, 



THE CHRISTMAS FEAST 233 

in an imagined case it would be absurd to 
say that the dull owner of the land himself 
is a creator of the wealth of the land. The 
people are the creators. Understand, we are 
not talking Henry Georgeism or any such 
thing. We are not underestimating the social 
importance of real estate dealers, who some- 
times skillfully and wisely direct the move- 
ment of demand for land values. We are 
simply pointing out the fact that it is 
possible for men to attain great wealth 
through the working of industrial forces with 
which they themselves may have had abso- 
lutely nothing to do. Of course, it is also 
true that a man may likewise lose wealth 
through no fault of his own — ^by the shifting 
of demand to some other quarter. This pos- 
sibility, however, only makes clear the fact 
of the share of society in creating the wealth 
which finds its way into the pockets of in- 
dividuals. If a man owns railroad stocks or 
bonds he must not think overmuch of the part 
which he has played in keeping up the confi- 



234 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

dence of the public in Ms particular kind 
of property. He must reflect long and pa- 
tiently upon the truth that the great factor 
likely to be overlooked is just the fact that 
out of people's living together in communi- 
ties comes in part the value of the great 
industrial agencies. 

So, then, our bread is a social product. 
I can have two loaves for the price of one 
simply because modern industrial society is 
organized to produce bread cheaply ; and the 
organization is possible only through the fact 
that people live together and have confidence 
in one another. The true Christian ought 
to put more and more meaning into our bread 
as he joins in the prayer with his children 
on Christmas day. He will not forget his 
obligations to the great human world out- 
side. There may be no particular specific 
thing that he can do— except this, perhaps, 
and this is very important: he can at least 
remember that the coming of Jesus into this 
world should mean a deepening sense of re- 



THE CHRISTMAS FEAST 235 

sponsibility on the part of the disciples for 
their stewardship over this world's goods. 
A general obligation to society seems very 
vagne when we try prescribing detailed rules 
to conduct, but the obligation is real, never- 
theless. The material blessings of Christmas 
day furnish an occasion for reflection on the 
obligation. 

' ' Our bread, ' ' the Master said. There is 
still another and more serious reflection that ^ 
should be in the mind of the Christian as 
he gives himself to the feast of Christmas. ^ 
He should allow himself to be touched with 
that searching question which modern social 
study forces upon us — the question as to 
whether any part of the good things upon 
his table belongs to some one else. While 
some are asking if they really have all their 
share of material good things, it may be well 
for those who have enough of this world's 
possessions to give feasts to ask themselves 
if they do not have more than their share. 
Here is a man whose income is derived from 



236 CHKISTMAS SEEMONS 

the rent of tenement houses. He could, if 
he would, so alter his houses as to make them 
more sanitary, but as they are they are 
breeding places for tuberculosis. It may 
never have occurred to the owner of the 
houses that he should be on guard against 
tuberculosis. He has not thought of the fact 
that when poverty comes out of periods of 
illness, which in turn come from poor sani- 
tary conditions, there is a duty of elim- 
ination and prevention resting upon the 
shoulders of some one. The old way of look- 
ing upon poverty and disease as afflictions 
which always come as providential trials is 
pretty seriously discounted by alert Chris- 
tian thinking to-day. We do not take stock 
in that kind of doctrine as we once did. Of 
course, the will of God is the active agency 
in sending afflictions upon us, but some af- 
flictions will cease when we come to a better 
understanding of what God desires to give 
us. What God wills to give men and what 
God wishes to give men may not always be 



THE CHEISTMAS FEAST 237 

one and the same. If there is ignorance and 
willfulness on the part of men, God mnst 
act differently from tlie course He would 
take if there were intelligent response to His 
plan. A mark of the presence of tlie Divine 
in modern life is a willingness on the part 
of so many to undertake the redemption of 
the earth from scourges like tuberculosis. 
The Christian ought to think upon these 
things, and order his tenement houses ac- 
cordingly. 

Or, here is the manager of a mill. He 
is regarded as a skillful manager, with un- 
usual ability to get large labor returns from 
his men. An employee is at work with a 
fast-flying wheel. The wheel shatters into 
a thousand pieces and kills the worker. The 
widow and four or five children, through a 
representative, ask damages, since the head 
of the family met death in faithful work at 
his post in the factory. The employer de- 
clines to do anything, on the ground that 
the worker was running his wheel over speed. 



238 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

He quotes the law of tlie State and the rule 
of the mill that the wheels shall not be driven 
faster than a certain rate. This all sounds 
very well, but any one who knows the inside 
understands that the men are expected to 
break the rule and break the law. They can 
not keep their positions unless they are will- 
ing to run the wheels over speed. Suppose 
such an employer, having passed through one 
or a dozen such experiences since last Christ- 
mas, sits down to his Christmas dinner to- 
day. If he is a Christian at all he must see 
that the bread upon the table is not his own 
bread, but the bread of the widows and the 
orphans. The jewels that deck the fingers 
or the throats of the employer's wife and 
children are hideously precious — they are 
bought with the sufferings of women and 
children. 

Now, some will say that all this arises in- 
evitably out of modern industrial conditions 
and that the general economic forces are to 
blame. When we fall to scrutinizing general 



THE CHEISTMAS FEAST 239 

economic forces closely, however, we find that 
they are largely the activities of particular 
men. Of course, economic forces are in part 
the resultant of physical conditions, but the 
forces are in even larger part the activities 
of men. Particular landlords control the con- 
ditions under which tens or hundreds of per- 
sons live. Particular mill-owners determine 
the conditions under which hundreds or thou- 
sands of persons work. Some one must take 
the lead. If the Christian employer will not 
take it, who will? We are not talking social- 
ism or any such thing. The simple fact is 
that when one man controls the material con- 
ditions under which a hundred men work for 
their daily bread, he must see to it that their 
full share of the bread is on their own 
Christmas tables and not on his. To be sure, 
in individual cases employers may be them- 
selves the victims of circumstances, but the 
Christian employer will not be content to be 
the victim of circumstances for long. 

It is conceivable that some man, giving 



240 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

himself to reflections like these, may conclude 
that it is his duty to do something in the 
way of *^ social relief/^ He will make a 
Christmas contribution to a charity fund or 
to an institutional Church. These things are 
all right in their way, but they will not reach 
the difficulties. In the place of the charity 
fund we need an attitude on the part of 
employers which will do something to make 
charity funds less necessary. In addition to 
institutional Churches we need industrial 
leaders in the strictly residence-community 
Churches who will welcome a social message 
of a reasonable kind. By reasonable kind 
we mean one which does not advocate radical 
social reconstruction on the one hand, or 
merely remedial expedients like charity funds 
on the other. It means, rather, a willingness 
to correct faults which all admit to exist in 
present conditions. The tenement house can 
be made clean. The mill-hands can be given 
every reasonable chance for safety. The gen- 
eral responsibility of the possession of power 



THE CHRISTMAS FEAST 241 

and wealth can be nrged. We do not hold 
this or that individual Christian responsible 
for conditions over which he has no control. 
He may not be called npon to head a social 
revolution, bnt he is certainly called upon 
to make the most normal and humane and 
brotherly use of the power which has come 
into his hand. 

What is the final conclusion, then, of this 
rather disconnected series of reflections? 
Just an enforcement of the truth that since 
the coming of Christ all good things are 
sacred with a new value. In other parts of 
this book we have emphasized Christmas day 
as the time for the ennoblement and adorn- 
ment of affection by precious gifts which set 
forth the rare value of our friendship. In 
all this, however, we must first of all make 
sure that the money is really our own. Then, 
even in the spending of the money which is 
our own we must not forget the general obli- 
gation to that social community which makes 
the earning of the money possible. Nor must 

16 



242 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

we forget that human and Christ ideal which 
should rule even in our feasts. Christ Him- 
self was found at the feasts of men. He 
used parables of banquets to set forth the 
good news of God. He spoke of the day 
when men should gather from every direc- 
tion to sit down at His table. But in all this 
He kept His thought of His obligation to His 
own self-respect and to His fellow-men and 
to His God uppermost. 



NO ROOM IN THE INN 



NO ROOM IN THE INN 



A Sermon to Children 

Luke ii, 7. 

You all know the story of wMch the text 
of the morning is a part. The rnler of Eome 
had sent forth an order that all the people 
of the Roman Empire should be enrolled in 
a great census. That order set thousands of 
persons into motion — traveling from the 
place where they happened to be living at 
the time back to the ancestral family home. 
It was necessary for Joseph and Mary to 
travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the an- 
cestral home of the line of David. 

It is not a long distance from Nazareth 
to Bethlehem as we think of distances to- 
day — not over eighty-five miles at the mostj 

245 



V 



246 CHRISTMAS SERMONS 

but people in the time of Josepli and Mary 
could not travel as fast and as comfortably 
as we can now. The journey was probably 
made with Mary on a donkey 's back, with 
Joseph on foot, leading or guiding the don- 
key. The roads were rough, there was dan- 
ger of robbers, there was not much chance 
to get food or rest on the trip. It was a 
very, very tired man and wife that reached 
Bethlehem on the evening that was destined 
to be the first Christmas eve, and when they 
reached Bethlehem they found every place 
in the inn taken. Jesus was born that night, 
and the story tells us that Mary laid the 
Child in a manger. 

The world has always seen something very 
sad in the words, ^^ There was no room in 
the inn.'' But the Bible does not blame any 
one because there was no room. The people 
who had places in the inn were not bad 
people. They were just about such people as 
would be likely to be at a country inn to-day 
if there could be anything like the order of 



NO EOOM IN THE INN 247 

an Emperor to send large numbers traveling 
into the country districts. Nobody was 
moved by spite against Joseph and Mary. 
Still we read the story and we say, ^^Too 
bad ! Too bad !^' Too bad that some one did 
not notice that Mary was very tired and did 
not take the manger that she might have his 
place. Too bad that all the people who had 
places in the inn missed the chance of pre- 
paring a place for the coming of Jesus. 
Some man^s name ought to have been men- 
^^ tioned in this story as one who moved out 
of his place that Mary might be in comfort. 
A dozen men ought to have been willing to 
give Mary a place. It would have taken only 
a little spirit of kindliness to have done this 
slight service for Mary and the coming 
Jesus. How did it happen that nobody came 
forward to offer Mary a place? 

Suppose we call up in fancy some of the 
travelers who stopped at the inn on that night 
of the long ago. Suppose we could call them 
back and question them — what would they 



248 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

say? Let us listen to some things that some 
of them would say. 

One man steps before us and pleads that 
he did not know any better. He had one 
of the good places in the inn. He saw Joseph 
and Mary pass by the fire in the center of 
the inn courtyard, but he did not think of 
such a thiuj? as offering his place. This man 
says that his mother tried to train him to 
be polite when he was a boy, to have con- 
sideration for others, and to offer his place 
to one who needed it worse than he did, but 
he could not see the use of politeness when 
he was a boy. It seemed silly to him even 
to make a bow to an elderly man. So this 
boy grew up with no knowledge of the mean- 
ing of the most ordinary politeness. He 
says now, as he stands before us in fancv, 
that if he could have only known that a lack 
of politeness would make him miss the chance 
of offering his place in the inn for the birth- 
place of the King of kings, he would have 
studied politeness with all his mind. But he 



NO EOOM IN THE INN 249 

aid not know. So he grew up with no train- 
ing in consideration for others and he missed 
his chance. If we conld see this man's 
mother, wherever she is in the other world, 
we should probably see her looking with re- 
proachful eyes upon the son who would not 
be polite because he could not see ^'any sense 
in politeness.'' 

"We call another man out of the past. He, 
too, was in the inn on the night that Joseph 
and Mary entered. He declares, though, that 
he did not see them come in. Now, of course 
there were some who could not see — some 
who had gone to bed or were busy in an- 
other part. This man was sitting in full view 
of Joseph and Mary as they came in. They 
almost stumbled over his feet as they passed 
between him and the fire on their way to 
the part reserved for animals. Yet he says 
that he did not see them— and he is telling 
the truth. He did not see them. He is— 
or was then — one of those men who when 
their own needs are met do not see the needs 



t. 



250 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

of any one else. He had come early to the 
inn and had settled himself comfortably for 
the night Of course he knew that there were 
other people coming in, but he never thought 
of asking himself if any of these others 
needed room more than he needed it himself. 
The boy who never thinks whether other 
people have Christmas presents or not if he 
himself has all he wants is just the kind of 
boy who will make the kind of man we are 
talking about. He would be greatly surprised 
if he were told of his lack of consideration 
for others. In some ways he is polite enough, 
but the trouble with him is that when he 
himself is satisfied he thinks that every- 
body else is satisfied too. He is gentleman 
enough to lift his hat to a lady or to an 
elderly man, but not gentleman enough to be 
on the lookout for a chance to help some one 
in need. He would have said in surprise, at 
the suggestion that he give up his place to 
Joseph and Mary, that he would have to sit 
up all night ! He could have afforded to sit 



NO EOOM IN THE INN 251 

up one night to have heard the first cry of the 
Christ-child. 

There was another in the inn who did not 
see. His trouble was not that he was self- 
centered. He was really very generous. As 
soon as he saw a chance to do good, he was 
eager to do good. The trouble was that he 
just didn^t see. He was not quick enough. 
He, too, was near the fire as Joseph and 
Mary passed by. He saw them, in a way, 
but he did not think of offering his place 
to them till he got home the next day. A 
man of good impulses, but not quite quick 
enough. Of course we all know that if we 
are going to succeed when we grow up and 
go into business, or become lawyers or doc- 
tors, we must be very quick to see chances. 
Most of us can see the chance after it has 
passed by. We can think of the kindly act 
we ought to have done after the chance for 
doing the act has passed. "We excuse our- 
selves by saying that we didn't think — ^but 
we are here to think. It must have been 



252 CHEISTMAS SEEMONS 

rather a bitter memory to this man to think 
of the good he might have done if he had 
just seen. But he didn't see. He had not 
been trained to see. He wished to do good, 
but he was not on the lookout for chances to 
do good. And so he did not think of offering 
his place to Joseph and Mary until the next 
day, and then it was too late. 

There is still another man before us as 
we think of those who staid at the inn that 
night. We trust that this man has been in 
a world where he has learned better since, but 
at the time this man said, ''First come, first 
served.'' He saw Joseph and Mary come 
in, and was really very sorry for them, but 
it was not his fault that they were late at 
the inn. ''It was too bad for Mary to be 
worn and tired with the journey, but they 
really ought to have started sooner, or they 
Ought not to have tried to travel so far in 
one day, or they ought to have prodded the 
donkey along a little faster. Anyhow it 
would be impossible to keep inns on any other 



■■ ) ■ i JP- l ■■*l»W^ 



NO EOOM IN THE INN 253 

plan than first come, first served. That is 
the only way to be fair to everybody. When 
people are traveling they mnst expect to have 
to pnt np with some inconveniences.'' 

When we try to nrge npon this man the 
thonght of the opportunity he lost through 
not making way for Joseph and Mary, he 
talks to ns again about first come, first 
served. He says that this is the only rule 
by which we can get along. He tells us that 
while the Golden Eule is good, it is not to 
be taken ^ ^ literally, ' ' as he calls it, by which 
he is apt to mean that the Eule is not to be 
taken as if it meant what it says, but as if 
it meant what it does not say. He may even 
say things that seem to him very funny about 
what would happen if everybody waited for 
everybody else, and if everybody gave up to 
everybody else. But all such talk misses the 
point. The Golden Eule would have us treat 
others as ourselves and in cases of unusual 
need render unto others the good that at such 
times we should like to have given to our- 



254 CHEISTMAS SERMONS 

selves. There is sometMng wrong with first 
come, first served, when it allows a strong, 
healthy man to sleep in comfort while Mary- 
goes to the manger. 

We mnst not make onr list too long, bnt 
we ought to hear at least one more man. 
This man tells ns that he saw Joseph and 
Mary come into the inn and that he intended 
to give his place to them. "While he was 
thinking abont it, though, they passed on. 
He could not get Joseph and Mary out of 
his mind, but after he had failed to speak 
to them on first seeing them, he felt ashamed 
to hunt them up. As it was, they were on 
his mind all night. He felt once or twice 
that he must get up, even in the middle of 
the night, and let them have his place. But 
he did n ^t. He pulled his blanket around his 
shoulders and fell into a doze. 

Now, why do we talk in this way about 
all these people? Just because the persons 
did what we would probably have done if 
we had been in their place. For many of 



1!^ 



NO EOOM IN THE INN 256 

US, day after day, act just as they did. To 
be sure, we do not have the chance to aid 
Christ as did these travelers who stopped on 
the first Christmas eve at the inn, but Christ 
has told ns that He is before ns when one 
of His children anywhere is in need. And 
Christian parents have trained ns to manners 
of consideration for others, not merely to 
have ns appear better at dinners and parties, 
but to put ns on the way of rendering Christ 
service. We do not say that those travelers 
in the inn at Bethlehem were wicked; we do 
not say that they wished to have the new- 
bom Christ laid in a manger. We simply 
say that they were thoughtless or that they 
were thinking only of themselves. 

If we could call back together all these 
different persons we have mentioned — all who 
might have made a place for Christ but did 
not — there is one thing they would all alike 
say : that if they had known that Christ was 
to come to the inn that night they would have 
been glad to make a place for Him, but they 



256 CHRISTMAS SEEMONS 

did not know. We sometimes make the same 
excuse, but we can not make it with the same 
right that the travelers in the inn did. For 
since Christ has spoken His truth to us, we 
hnoiv that every time one in real need stands 
before us Christ stands before us. 

There is something more. Christ comes 
to us, not only in the form of those in dis- 
tress or need, but He comes to us in prompt- 
ings to do right — those inner promptings 
that no one may know of except ourselves. 
Our lives, after all, may be spoken of as 
Bethlehem inns, where Christ may be bom. 
The little promptings to do right are the 
coming of Christ. But what if all the room 
is taken? If we are thoughtless or careless 
or interested merely in our own pleasures, 
some of these strivings toward the better life 
have no place to stay in our hearts. Let us 

V 

remember that Christ was kept out of the 
inn, not because the people in the inn did 
not like Him or because they were trying 
to keep Him out. He was kept out because 



\ ' 



NO EOOM IN THE INN 257 

the places were all taken. If I want to have 
my own way, that takes a room. If I am 
interested jnst in myself, that takes a room — ^ ^ 
maybe all the rooms. Every time I fill up 
the rooms in this way and keep ont the good 
impulses, I am making what happened in the 
olden time to happen again. There is no 
room for Christ in the inn. And onr lives 
are really more than inns. They are dwelling- . 
houses. Christ comes not to stay over night, 
but to stay all the time. He comes to live 
with ns. But He can not stay with ns unless 
He can get in. And He can not get in if 
there is no room. And there can not be room 
unless we make room. "We can make room 
if we will. It need never be said of our 
lives that they had no room for Christ. - . 



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